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I 



JUNIUS AND HIS WORKS 



COMPARED WITH THE 



CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 



PHILIP DORMER STANHOPE, 



EAEL OF CHESTERFIELD. 



None but himself can be his parallel." 



WILLIAM ^CRAMP, 

M 

AUTHOR Or " THE PHILOSOPHY OP LANGUAGE.' 



LONDON: 

HOPE AND Co., 

16, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 

1850. 




_Ib fc.S08 

•Cs£] 



PREFACE: 



The object of this first Essay is to endeavour to remove some 
objections which have hitherto excluded Lord Chesterfield 
from his fair claim to the authorship of the letters of Junius. 
Mr. Wade, the editor of a recent edition of the letters, in his 
second volume, p. xxviii., remarks that 

" One of the wildest conjectures has been the ascription of 
the letters to Lord Chesterfield." 

In support of his opinion Mr. Wade urges the impossibility 
of the truth of such a conjecture, on the grounds of the ex- 
treme old age and physical maladies of Lord Chesterfield, and 
he concludes his short notice by \ asserting, on the authority of 
Debrett's Peerage, that " The old Earl died when Junius 
was in his full career." 

As this error in Debrett's Peerage has been already pointed 
out (pp. 75 — 113), it will not be necessary to dwell on it 
here, but merely to repeat that Lord Chesterfield died on the 
24th March, 1773, the month that Junius so mysteriously dis 
appeared. It is extraordinary, however, that both Mr. Wade 
and Mr. Coventry, who profess to have examined the claims 
of Lord Chesterfield, should refer to the authority of Debrett's 
Peerage when so important a fact might have been ascertained 
by having recourse to the periodicals of the day, or to the 
memoirs of Lord Chesterfield. 

The description of Lord Chesterfield's mental and physical 
infirmities, and the assertion that his lordship had sunk into 
the lowest abyss of misery at the time that Junius was in his 
full career, should be cautiously received. 



IV PREFACE. 

That Lord Chesterfield's mental faculties were not greatly 
impaired at the time the letters of Junius were written, has 
been proved by the evidence of his contemporaries, who, in 
almost every instance, flatly contradict the deplorable ac- 
counts which his lordship at times thought proper to send to 
his friends. In a letter dated 24th October, 1771, Voltaire 
writes : — 

" May you enjoy an honourable and a happy old age after 
passing through the trials of life ! May you continue to enjoy 
health both of body and mind ! Of t\\o,jive senses allotted to 
us only one of yours has suffered any decay > and Lord Hun- 
tingdon assures me that your stomach is good, which is more 
valuable than a pair of ears." 

Yet at the time this pleasing account of Lord Chesterfield's 
health was sent to England, his lordship declared, in writing 
to the Bishop of Waterford, " that his hand trembled to that 
degree that he could hardly hold his pen — that his under- 
standing stuttered and his memory fumbled." It is highly 
probable, therefore, that the exact state of Lord Chesterfield's 
health in 1771 was better known at Ferney than either here 
or in Ireland, since the favourable report of Lord Huntingdon 
can hardly be doubted, for no one was on more intimate 
terms with Lord Chesterfield than that young nobleman. 

That Lord Chesterfield had reason to believe that he was 
suspected of employing himself in supporting some of the 
political factions of that period is nil but admitted in a letter to 
Mrs. Stanhope, Nov. 4, 1770: — "My friends from time to 
time require bills of health from me in these suspicious times 
when the plague is busy in some parts of Europe. All I can 
say in answer to their kind enquiries is, that I have not the 
distemper properly called the plague, but that I have all the 
plagues of old age and of a shattered carcase" 

This letter was written during the longest interval in the 
correspondence between Junius and Woodfall. Only one 
letter under the signature of Junius appeared in the Public 



PREFACE. V 

Advertiser from the 28th May to the 14th Nov., 1770, and 
there is a break in the private letters for a period of seven 
months. It is highly probable that there had been some mis- 
understanding between the writer and his publisher ; for the 
first letter (on the renewal of their correspondence) is abrupt, 
and indicative of the displeasure of Junius 

"By your affected silence you encourage an idle opinion, 
that I am the author of the Whig, &c, though you very 
well know the contrary, I neither admire the writer nor his 
idol [Lord Chatham]. I hope you will soon set this matter 
right.— C." 

It would be in vain, perhaps, now to inquire into the cause 
of this disagreement, or whether any angry letters passed, at 
that time, between Woodfall and Junius, and have for that 
reason been suppressed. 

As there is not a page, nay scarcely a paragraph, in the 
letters of Junius that does not bear some imprint of the mind 
and character of Lord Chesterfield, it is not to be wondered 
at that he should have occasionally been suspected by his 
acquaintance, and he must indeed have found some difficulty 
in keeping alive the impression that he was hors de combat as a 
political writer. Without some subterfuge like this (imply- 
ing a physical impossibility), we do not see how Junius (who- 
ever he was) could have so long preserved his secret, or have 
found leisure for the composition of his letters. The plea of 
ill health, no doubt, protected the writer against many imper- 
tinent intrusions. An instance of this kind occurred to Lord 
Chesterfield while Junius was engaged in writing his letters. 

M. Suard, an accomplished Frenchman, being on a visit in 
England, in 1769, was presented to Lord Chesterfield, by his 
lordship's physician, Dr. Maty. The visit was abridged lest 
its continuance should fatigue Lord Chesterfield : — " I will 
not detain you," said his lordship, "I must go and perform 
the rehearsal of my funeral," alluding to the drive he took 
every morning in the streets of London." 



VI PREFACE. 

Who that witnessed this melancholy procession in the 
morning, could suspect that during the rest of the day Lord 
Chesterfield was occupied in writing the letters of Junius ? 
The conjecture, if for a moment entertained, would appear so 
incredible, as to check further inquiry, for few would believe 
that a decrepid, worn out, old man, thus ostentatiously exhibiting 
his infirmities to the world, could be Junius, and by this and 
other similar stratagems, Lord Chesterfield probably secured 
himself against discovery. 

Although Lord Chesterfield made such a display of his 
funeral before his death, and while the letters of Junius were in the 
course of publication, yet he would have no posthumous follies 
at his burial. By his will, dated 4th June, 1772, he limited 
the whole expense of his funeral to £100, and desired to be 
buried in the next burying place where he should happen to 
die. In compliance with this injunction, his remains were 
interred, without any pomp, in the vault of the chapel in South 
Audley Street, but they were afterwards removed to the 
family burial place in Shelford Church, Nottinghamshire. 

An important instance, shewing how tenaciously Lord 
Chesterfield adhered to his ruling passion for political intrigue, 
even after the letters of Junius had ceased, may be gleaned from 
Voltaire's answer to a letter from his lordship, written in 1772. 
The reproof contained in the opening of Voltaire's letter 
leaves but little doubt that the subject of Lord Chesterfield's 
communication was of a 'political character. 

u You desire to have my thoughts on the present state of 
Europe, I rather now expected you would have asked my 
opinion about other matters which I happened to be thinking 

of when your last letter was brought me by Mr. S ." (See 

Annual Register, 1773, p. 217). 

To assert that Junius was in his full career at the time 
Lord Chesterfield was on his death bed, is not borne out by 
evidence. 

Junius may be said to have been in his full career in 1769. 
For after his celebrated letter to the King his powers declined. 



PREFACE. Vll 

Even his contemporaries perceived the change, and his private 
letters afford melancholy proofs that he was u overcome with 
the slavery of writing." He had satiated his vengeance on 
the Duke of Grafton and Mr. Bradshaw, and would gladly 
have retired. 

If the facts contained in this Preliminary Essay should pro- 
duce the favourable impression which the writer anticipate^ 
the subject will be resumed by a review of the letters of 
Junius, taken in the order in which they appeared in the 
Public Advertiser. 

In carrying out this plan, the next Essay will contain the 
Episodes of Junius against Lord Chatham — Sir James 
Lowther — and Lord Hillsborough, with critical remarks 
on the letters signed Atticus, and a review of other miscel- 
laneous letters published before the writer had assumed the 
character of Junius. 



JUNIUS AND HIS WORKS, 

COMPARED WITH THE 

CHARACTER AND WRITINGS OF 

LORD CHESTERFIELD, 



CHAPTER I. 



A very great degree of probability supported by various concur- 
rent circumstances conspiring in one point, will have much 
greater weight with me than human testimony upon oath, or 
even upon honour. — Chesterfield. 



The inquiry as to the authorship of the letters of Junius has 
lately been revived by Mr. Britton, whose name in the literary 
world will attract attention, although a more improbable hypoth- 
esis could scarcely have been imagined than that Lord Shelburne, 
Colonel Barre, and the Attorney- General Dunning were the junto 
engaged during five years in the composition of the letters of Junius. 

There is, however, one part of Mr. Britton's inquiry that de- 
serves attention, since it carries back the history of Junius to a 
period that will exclude many of the pretenders from the praise or 
blame of having written these brilliant epistles. Mr. Britton seems 
convinced that a letter published in 1760, addressed to " An Honour- 
able Brigadier General," was from the pen of Junius. 

" In the language, style, and sentiments of the anonymous 
letter to General Townshend," says Mr. Britton, " there is a most 
remarkable and extraordinary coincidence with the Letters of Junius. 
So striking, indeed, is the resemblance not only in particular phrases 
and expressions and in isolated passages, but in the style, diction, 
energy, spirit, and character of the entire composition, that there 



6 JUNIUS AND LORD TOWNSHEND. 

can scarcely be a doubt the writer was the author, not only of the 
letters which from 1767 to 1769 appeared in the Public Advertiser 
under the signatures of Atticus, Lucius, Brutus, Poplicola, &c, 
but also of the unparalleled effusions which were published in the 
same journal from 1769 to 1772 with the memorable signature of 
Junius. 

" This resemblance was pointed out in 1817 by a person who 
had only read some extracts from the "Letter to a Brigadier General" 
which had appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine. Under the name 
of Phil-Urbanus, he expressed his strong opinion in the same perio- 
dical that if the author of the Letter to a Brigadier General should 
be known, it would be no difficult task to set at rest the inquiry 
after the author of the letters of Junius. The hint thus given does 
not appear to have been followed up, but in 1840 the pamphlet 
now referred to happened to come under the notice of Mr. N. W. 
Simons, of the Library of the British Museum. Not knowing that 
Phil-Urbanus had taken the same view three and twenty years 
before, Mr. Simons, on reading this obscure and forgotten work, was 
immediately and forcibly impressed with its analogy in style to the 
letters of Junius, and its consequent importance as affording a pos- 
sible clue to the discovery of their author. That gentleman was 
himself well qualified by previous study of the writings of Junius, 
to form an opinion on this subject; and that opinion being con- 
firmed by several friends of literary eminence he was induced, in 
the year 1841, to reprint the " Letter," as well as the " Refutation" 
of it, appending to them some valuable original remarks, tending, 
firstly, to prove that the "Letter" was really from the pen of 
Junius, and, secondly, to refute the opinion that Sir Philip Francis 
was the author of the letters with that signature. 

" In addition to Mr. Simons and Phil-Urbanus, it is stated by 
another writer in the Gentleman's Magazine (July, 1843), that an 
individual then recently deceased, who had only seen the extracts 
from the pamphlet of 1760, had not only come to the same con- 
clusion of its identity of authorship with the letters of Junius, 
but, previously to the illness which terminated his life, was pre- 
paring for the press a statement of his opinion. Thus three 
several parties, entirely unconnected with each other, after reading 
either the whole Letter or extracts from it, had arrived at the con- 
viction that it was an early production of the great and unknown 



JUNIUS AND LORD TOWNSHEND. 7 

English political satirist, and Mr. Simon's reprint has since induced 
many other persons to adopt the same opinion." 

Now, if it be generally admitted that the " Letter to an Ho- 
nourable Brigadier General" was written by Junius, and it should 
be found that the proofs of authorship are in every particular 
applicable to Lord Chesterfield, the evidence obtained from so un- 
biassed a source cannot fail, on the outset of this inquiry, to make 
a strong impression. 

But, before we enter upon the subject of this letter, we would 
remove an unfavourable impression that has, perhaps, prejudiced 
many against listening to the supposition that Lord Chesterfield 
could sustain the character of Junius. In the enumeration of the 
forthcoming attempts to elucidate this interesting question, Mr. 
Britton has referred to " An Essay preparing by a gentleman in 
Sussex, intended to show that the polite Earl of Chesterfield was 
the author of the letters." 

If the epithet here given to Lord Chesterfield be meant to 
expose the absurdity of such an hypothesis, the writer should have 
recollected that the most distinguished trait in the character of the 
stern patriot was his extreme politeness. On no point did Junius 
appear to be more sensible to reproof than on those occasions when, 
in his indignation, he for a moment forgot the suaviter hi modo 
which so peculiarly pervades his bitterest invectives.* Scarcely had 
he attracted the attention of the public when he acquired, even from 
his adversaries, the epithets elegant, accomplished, said polite. His 
good breeding seldom forsook him. When called a liar and a 
scoundrel, he replied in the most courteous language, and by lively 
sarcasm or polished reproof brought disgrace upon his opponents. 
The lessons which Junius gave to Sir William Draper on good 
breeding, afford strong proofs of the polished manners and self con- 
trol of the writer. 

" Touched with your generosity, I freely forgive the excesses 
into which it has led you ; and far from resenting those terms of 
reproach which, considering that you are an advocate for decorum, 
you have heaped upon me rather too liberally, I place them to the 

* In these altercations nothing can be more useful than to preserve dignity 
and sangfroid. Fortiter in re suaviter in modo increases both the force and the 
severity. — Junius to Wilkes. 

This maxim is inculcated throughout the letters of Lord Chesterfield to 
his son. — See more particularly letter 213. 



S JtTNIUS AND LOED TOWNSHENJD. 

account of an honest, unreflecting indignation, in which your coolef 
judgment, and natural politeness had no concern. * * 

The last charge of the neglect of the army, is, indeed, the most ma- 
terial of all. I am sorry to tell you, Sir William, that in this article 
your first fact is false ; and, as there is nothing more painful to me 
than to give a direct contradiction to a gentleman of your appear- 
ance, I could wish that in your future publications you would pay 
a greater attention to the truth of your premises before you suffer 
your genius to hurry you to a conclusion." 

Such was the language of Junius to the man who had called him 
a liar and a wretch* 

The answer of Junius to another of his opponents is still more 
characteristic. 

" The sophistry of your letter in defence of Lord Mansfield is 
adapted to the character you defend. But Lord Mansfield is a man 
of form, and seldom in his behaviour transgresses the rules of 
decorum.* I shall imitate his lordship's good manners, and leave 
you in full possession of his principles. I will not call you 
liar, Jesuit, or villian, but, with all the politeness imaginable, per* 
haps I may prove you so." 

The abuse which Junius incurred by his defence of Sir Jeffrey 
Amherst is thus coolly replied to in the postscript to a letter under 
the signature Lucius. 

" A friend of mine has taken the pains to collect a number of 
the epithets with which Lord Hillsborough has been pleased to 
honour me in the course of our correspondence. I shall lay them 
before the public in one view as a specimen of his lordship's 
urbanity and singular condescension. 

1. Wretched scribbler, 

2. Worthless fellow. 

3. Vile incendiary. 

4. False Ymx<—in opposition to a true one. 

5. Snarler. 

6. Contemptible thing. 

7. Abandoned tool of opposition and diabolical miscreant. 

8. Impudent scurrilous wretch. 

* Lord Chesterfield may be said to have brought this word into general use 
by his paper in the World, No. 189. Works, vol. ii,, p. 299. It frequently 
occurs in the letters of Junius. 



JUNIUS AND LOED TOWNSHEND. 9 

9. Rascal and scoundrel passim. 

10. Barking cur, by way of distinction from 

11. Barking animal, cum multis aliis. 

" To all of which I shall only say, that his lordship's arguments 
are upon a level with his politeness." 

Home Tooke, affecting to be disgusted with the refinement of 
Junius, invidiously observed — "You make frequent use of the 
word gentleman. I only call myself a man, and desire no other 
distinction." 

Even the patriot Wilkes gave singular proofs of the ascendancy 
which the highly cultivated mind of Junius had obtained over him. 
This idol of the people humbled himself to the dust before Junius, 
and was prepared to kneel to and worship " the unknown god of 
politics." Yet he, too, was impressed with an idea of the personal 
accomplishments of the writer. 

" How happy should I be to see my Portia here dance a grace* 
ful minuet with Junius Brutus, but Junius is inexorable, and I 
submit."* 

The answer to this offer is well known. It carries with it in 
tone and feeling the regret of one who could no longer shine in 
public assemblies. " Many thanks," says Junius, " for your oblig- 
ing offer ; but, alas ! my age and figure would do but little credit 
to my partner. I acknowledge the relation between Cato and 
Portia, but in truth I see no connection between Junius and a 
minuet." 

As this letter was private, the writer can hardly be supposed to 
have intended to deceive Wilkes as to his age and infirmities. If 
Wilkes had not been impressed with the popular notion that Junius 
was one of the active politicians of the day, he might have gleaned 
from the peculiar turn of expression, and the delicate flattery of 
the man who had formerly abused him, that Lord Chesterfield alone 
possessed the art to persuade him to forget the injuries he had 
received from the pen of Junius. 

This is the fair outline of the character of Junius, which, in 
portraits of the dead, is too commonly overlooked. Let us now 
turn to the darker lineaments by which Junius is generally recog- 

* Wilkes, in the hope, probably, of discovering his correspondent, had 
offered Junius tickets for the Lord Mayor's ball.— See Wood/all's Junius, vol, 
1,2?. 325. 



10 JUNIUS AND LORD TOWNSHEND. 

nised. In these features may also be traced a striking resemblance 
to Lord Chesterfield ; the following unfavourable portrait of his 
lordship was drawn by a political opponent : — 

" Lord Chesterfield was allowed by everybody to have more con- 
versable entertaining table-wit than any man of his time. His 
propensity to ridicule, in which he indulged himself with infinite 
humour and no distinction, and with inexhaustible spirits and no 
discretion, made him sought and feared, liked and not loved by 
most of his acquaintance ; no sex, no relation, no rank, no power, 
no profession, no friendship, no obligation, was a shield from those 
pointed, glittering weapons, that seemed to shine only to a stander- 
by, but cut deep in those they touched. All his acquaintance were 
indifferently the objects of his satire, and served promiscuously to 
feed his voracious appetite for abuse that made him fall on every- 
thing that came in his way, and treat every one of his companions 
in rotation at the expense of the rest/' * * * " He 

never considered what was true or false, but related everything in 
which he had no interest just as his imagination suggested it would 
tell best ; and if by sinking, adding, or altering any circumstance, 
it served either the purpose of his interest, his vanity, or his enmity, 
he would dress it up in that fashion without any scruple, and often- 
times with as little probability ; by which means as much as he 
piqued himself on being distinguished for his wit, he often gave 
people a greater opinion of the copiousness of his invention, and 
the futility of his imagination than he desired." He was," says 
this noble author, " abominably given to fable."* 1 

The style of Lord Chesterfield's compositions as described by 
Lord Hervey, forcibly reminds the reader of the prevailing charac- 
teristics of Junius's writings. 

" Lord Chesterfield's memoirsf will have a great deal of wit in 
them, but you will see in every page he resolves to be witty ; every 

* Hervey's Memoirs, vol. 1, p. 95, 98. 

f These Memoirs were either destroyed by Lord Chesterfield or have been 
withheld from the public. The Bishop of Waterford, his chaplain and friend, 
expressed his surprise that nothing should have been found among the late 
Earl's papers concerning the history of his own times. His Lordship, he says, 
repeated to him more than once that he was writing it as far as his memory, 
which was a good one, would furnish him with matter, and Lord S., whose 
mother was first cousin to Lord Chesterfield, assured the Bishop, as having it 
from Sir Wm. Stanhope, that one day upon his brother's showing him his 
manuscripts, he had told him that by his will he had left him the publication 
of them ; and then added, "publish them as soon as you dare." 



JUNIUS AND LORD TOWNSHEND. 11 

paragraph mil be an epigram. His style for short treatises is ex- 
cellent; but in a long work all that labour and polishing he 
bestows on every thing he writes will appear stiff and tiresome. 
Correction will be wanting ; and that want of transition which is 
so pardonable when it proceeds from haste or a little negligence in 
running quick from one subject to another, will have an abrupt air 
and a disagreeable broken effect in such a constrained, studied 
style, that it has not in writings of a looser and more natural 
sort." 

Junius has, in one of his letters, styled himself Bifrons, and as 
a polished courtier and vindictive satirist, it must be owned he 
maintained with inimitable skill the duplicity of character which, 
by that signature, he had inadvertently assumed. 

Having, it is hoped, removed any prejudice that might be en- 
tertained on the score of Lord Chesterfield's frivolity of character, 
we shall resume the subject of this Chapter, and lay before the 
reader the circumstances which tend to prove that his lordship was 
the writer of the letter to Brigadier General Townshend. 

The first question that the reader will ask in order to satisfy 
himself that this Letter might have been written by Lord Chester- 
field, will be, — what motives could induce his lordship to write 
such a letter ? m 

To answer this inquiry it will be necessary to refer to his lord- 
ship's connection with the Court, and with the parties eulogised or 
condemned in the letter to Lord Townshend. 

The parties eulogised, or presumed to be on friendly terms 
with the writer, are — 

Prince Ferdinand, 

The Earl of Albemarle, 

General Wolfe, 

The Marquis of Granby, 

M. De Bourgainville. 
The persons condemned are— 

The King, 

Lord Townshend, 

Lord Geo. Sackville, » 

And the Scots. 
With regard to the first of these parties, it may be observed 
that Prince Ferdinand was one of the few who had not slighted 



12 JtitflUS AND LORD TOWNSHEND. 

Mr. Stanhope on the score of his illegitimacy. General Wolfe 
was emphatically styled the friend of Mr. Stanhope. The father of 
Lord Albemarle was the earliest patron of Mr. Stanhope, and till 
his death on terms of great intimacy with Lord Chesterfield.* As 
regards M. de Bourgainville, his name is only once introduced ; but 
his friendship! for Lord Chesterfield will account for the accuracy 
of some of the facts detailed in the '* Letter." The conduct of 
Junius some years later towards the Marquis of Granby will be 
considered in another part of this work. Thus it will be seen that 
four, at least, of thefve heroes eulogised by the writer were either 
friends of Lord Chesterfield or of Mr. Stanhope, whose disappointed 
ambition is now supposed to have given rise to this extraordinary 
letter to Lord Townshend. 

It would not be surprising if, after the lapse of more than three- 
quarters of a century, no motive could be assigned to Lord Ches- 
terfield for undertaking this anonymous publication. Those who 
have endeavoured to obtain materials for a memoir of his lordship's 
life and times, have in every instance been obstructed in their 
research. His correspondence has been mutilated or destroyed ; 
his most interesting lucubrations suppressed ; and access has been 
denied to those records wherein his fame might have been esta- 
blished.:!; But as we have entered more fully into these extraordu 
nary [iroceedings in another place, we shall confine ourselves to the 
proof that Lord Chesterfield had at this time sufficient cause to 
be dissatisfied with the parties stigmatised in the letter. * 

In the year 1759, Lord Chesterfield had obtained a promise 
that his son should have the honour of investing Prince Ferdi- 
nand with the Order of the Garter, intended to be conferred on 
His Serene Highness for his success at Minden.§ This promise 
Lord Chesterfield flattered himself he had secured, but his expec- 



* The correspondence between Lord Albemarle and Lord Chesterfield has 
never been published. 

t M. de Bourgainville was the gentleman through whose interest Lord 
Chesterfield was elected a member of the Academy of Belles Lettres. 

% See Quarterly Review, vol. LXXVL, p. 461. 

§ 4 4 You did well to think of Prince Ferdinand's riband, which I confess I 
did not, and 1 am glad to find you thinking so far before hand. It would be a 
pretty commission, and I will accingere me to procure it you." — Letter to his 
son, Nov. 21st, 1758. 

" Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick is most certainly to have the Garter, and 
I have secured you the honour of putting it on. When I say secured, I mean 



JUNIUS AND LOED TOWNSHEND. 13 

tations were disappointed either by some intrigue of parties, or by 
the obduracy of the King. Whether Lord Townshend and Lord 
Geo. Sackvilie were the persons who, by indirect means, through 
the machinations of the Princess Dowager of Wales and Lord 
Bute, thwarted the views of Lord Chesterfield, remains a secret. 
But the bare suing for this honour for Mr. Stanhope was sufficient 
to irritate Lord G. Sackvilie, and to induce him to counterwork 
the ambitious project of Lord Chesterfield. The conduct of the 
new Court to both parties, sometime after the publication of the 
anonymous Letter, strengthens the supposition that Lord George 
Sackvilie was the concealed enemy who deprived Mr. Stanhope of 
the honour he had so ardently coveted. The " Letter'' was pub- 
lished in the Summer, 1760.* Geo. II. died on the 26th Oct. fol- 
lowing, and the meeting between Lord Townshend and Lord Albe- 
marle took place the second week of the new reign. An interval, 
therefore, of two months had elapsed before there was any stir 
respecting the " Letter," and the secret seems to have transpired 
at the critical moment when Lord Geo. Sackvilie was compelled 
to forego the honours designed him by Lord Bute and his Sove- 
reign. 

" Two days after his present Majesty's accession, the Earl of 
Bute was, with the King's eldest brother, introduced into the 
Privy Council. Scarce was the ink dry which had marked his 
name upon the Council Book when, although no minister himself, 
yet he assumed a magisterial air of authority and began to give 
law in the court, and to show not only with what contempt he 
meant to treat the memory and conduct of the deceased monarch, 
but his dislike of the measures which were then, and had for 
some time been pursued, and in order to affront the ministers and 
the allied army, he invited to Court, while the late King lay dead 



it in the sense in which that word should always be understood at Courts, and 
that is insecurely ; I have a promise, but that is not caution bourgeoise. In all 
events do not mention it to any mortal, because there is always a degree of 
ridicule that attends a disappointment, though often very unjustly if the expec- 
tation was reasonably grounded." — Dec. 15, 1758. 

* Prince Ferdinand was installed on the 6th May, 1760. Lord Ches- 
terfield was not among the Knights who attended on that occasion. His feelings 
as a fath t and his resentment against the Court may reasonably be supposed 
to have counterbalanced the respect due to Prince Ferdinand. The Prince was 
installed by proxy, which would remove any scruples Lord Chesterfield might 
have in absenting himself from the ceremony. 



14 JUNIUS AND LOKD TOWNSHEND. 

in his palace, the only unpopular man at that time in the kingdom, 
who, but a few months before, had been degraded from his rank 
for a disobedience of orders when in the service of his country. 
He was, indeed, admitted to kiss hands, but the true friends of the 
honour of the Crown, and those who laid the foundation of all that 
glory which the army had acquired, and of that spirit which might 
have given law to the world, remonstrated so firmly against it that 
he was forced to abscond and never presume again, during Mr. 
Pitt's administration, to show his face at St. James's." — Hist, of 
the Minority, p. 10. 

The mortification that Lord Geo. Sackville was compelled to 
submit to through the influence of Mr. Pitt and the Duke of 
Newcastle, appears to have been retaliated on Lord Chesterfield 
on his Jirst and only appearance at the Court of George the Third. 
An isolated letter from the correspondence of Lord Chesterfield 
to Dr. Dodd, affords strong evidence that his lordship had not 
been graciously received by the neAV Sovereign. The letter is 
dated July 19, 1766. 

"Sir, — I will not begin this letter with the common-place ex- 
pression of, ' I should be glad to serve you were I able,' which is 
much oftener a civil denial than a pledge of services really in- 
tended to be performed, but I hope you will give a juster and 
more favourable interpretation to the assurance of my good' wishes 
for you, however unavailing. As for any direct application from me 
to the King, it is utterly impossible. I have made my court but 
once to him since he came to the Crown, and that was in the first 
week, since when I have never seen his face, and probably he has 
never heard my name. Moreover, it would be ivholly useless to 
you for reasons ivhich I will tell you ivhen I have the pleasure 
to see you next. If you think that my writing to Lord Hert- 
ford in your behalf can be of any service to you (which I do not 
think it can), I shall very readily do it, and if the Duke of New- 
castle should retain the ecclesiastical department I will apply to 
him, and not without some hopes of success, but further this 
deponent saith not, because further is not in his power."* 

The Duke of Newcastle till within a twelvemonth of his death 
continued to interest himself in politics and to interfere with the 

* See Preface to Letters by Lord Chesterfield to Arthur Charles Stanhope* 
Esq. 



JUNIUS AND LOED TOWNSHEND. 15 

intrigues of parties. In 1767 he held meetings with the opposition 
members at his house at Clermont, and in town.* 4 When he died, 
he appears to have bequeathed to Lord Chesterfield (who was his 
junior by a year) the spirit of opposition to the Duke of Grafton's 
administration, for there is reason to believe that about this time 
Lord Chesterfield was enlightened by his former colleague upon 
many of the mysteries and secrets of the two reigns, and that 
he had obtained from his Grace a knowledge of the parties who 
had for so many years obstructed the preferment of Mr. Stanhope. 
Such an acquaintance could not fail to be of great service to 
Junius in his earlier letters. 

In corroboration that Lord Chesterfield did not meet with a very 
cordial reception at Court, we shall here introduce an anecdote 
recorded in Walpole's Memoirs of Geo. III. 

" Sir William Stanhope, brother of Lord Chesterfield, a man of 
not less wit and of more ill nature than his elder, said he would 
not go to court for fear of the itch, which would make him go to 
the Princess's court for brimstone." 

It is well known that a perfectly good understanding always 
existed between Lord Chesterfield and his brother, and that any 
affront to his lordship would not fail to be resented by Sir William 
Stanhope. Whether the discovery that Chesterfield was the 
author of this letter, or the disappointment that his lordship 
experienced on introducing his son at court, was the cause of the 
two brothers withdrawing their attendance is uncertain, but it is 
probable that the conduct of Geo. III. towards Mr. Stanhope gave 
the first offence. 

In the autumn of 1759, Mr. Stanhope was preparing to leave 
Hamburgh for England, evidently with a view of obtaining pre- 
ferment, the hope of which was probably held out to Lord 
Chesterfield by the ministers of Geo. II. as a compensation for 
the disappointment he had recently suffered in the affair of Prince 
Ferdinand. Lord Chesterfield thus counsels his son on this 
occasion : — 

" Give no mortal,\ either there or here, reason to think that 
you are not to return to Hamburgh again. If you are asked about 

* Account of a Conference Political Register, vol. 1, p. 201. 

t Change to the Somerset Coffee House and let no mortal know the alter- 
ation. — Junius, private letter, vol. I, p. 231. 



16 JUNIUS AND LOUD TOWNSHEND. 

it say, like Lockhart, that you are le serviteur des he'nemens, for 
your present appointments will do you no hurt till you have some 
better destination." 

It does not appear, however, that Lord Chesterfield's interest 
was sufficient to obtain the object intended by Mr. Stanhope's 
return to England in 1759. Nor did his son succeed in regaining 
any employment until Mr. GrenvilWs administration in 1763, when 
he was appointed envoy extraordinary to the Diet at Ratisbon. 
Even a seat in parliament was with difficulty obtained for him in 
1761, and this he was induced to resign in 1764, and was never 
after allowed to have a seat in that assembly. 

The Letter sets out with a most extraordinary confession, and 
in a style that at first sight does not appear consistent either with 
the character of Junius or of Lord Chesterfield. 

" Sir, — In my religious doubts I apply to the divinity of Dr. 
Whitefield, in any theatrical difficulties I consult the canonical cri- 
ticisms* of a certain Right Reverend, and in my polite misadven- 
tures the physician of Ludgate Hill is my celer atque Jidelis, 
secret and speedy. To whom, therefore, shall I appeal in any 
military doubts but to the man whom fortune, that never erring 
judge of merit, in one short campaign made a soldier, a general, and 
a commander-in-chief?" 

Note. — In the errata, for soldier we are directed to read colonel. 

Few readers would suppose that any instance of gross indeli- 
cacy would escape from the pen of Lord Chesterfield, much less 
would one expect to find similar deviations from propriety in any 
writings attributed to Junius, for on every occasion under that sig- 
nature Junius has evinced a scrupulous regard to decorum : but 
even in this particular the unknown writer betrayed himself. 
This will be seen by referring to the lines prefixed to Lord 
Northington's character (Woodfall's Junius, vol. II., p. 483), and 
the use to which certain papers were destined that were laid before 
the House of Peers by Lord Mansfield, vol. III., p. 290. For 
parallel passages in Lord Chesterfield's writings, the reader is 



* This rough manner of treating a man of letters implies perhaps more 
zeal than knowledge, at least I never met with it among the canons of criti- 
cism. — Chesterfield to Major Irvine. 



JTJNITJS AND LORD TOWNSHEND. 17 

referred to the Suffolk Letters, vol. II, p. 117, and to his lordship's 
Miscellaneous works, vol. II, p. 127. 

Instances of still greater indelicacy might he pointed out in the 
letters of Junius, and in the acknowledged productions of Lord 
Chesterfield, but with the examples before us the allusion to the 
Physician of Ludgate Hill will no longer appear inconsistent either 
with the character of Junius or of Lord Chesterfield. 

The ironical confession of the writer's faith in the divinity of 
Dr. Whitefield is also characteristic* as well as the reflection on 
the Right Rev. Dr. Warburton for his canonical criticisms, hut per- 
haps the most remarkable proof that Lord Chesterfield was the 
writer of this paragraph is to be found in the note containing the 
sarcasm that Lord Townshend was a colonel but no soldier. 

In 1734, when a motionf was made relating to the removal of 
the Duke of Bolton and Lord Cobham, the Duke of Argyle, who 
opposed the motion, observed " I am surprised to hear so much 
noise made about the removal of two lords from their commands 
in the army. It is true there have been two lords removed but 
only one soldier." 

It is well known that Lord Chesterfield seconded this motion 
and spoke warmly in favour of his two friends. It was while op- 
posing his lordship on this occasion that the Duke of Argyle made 
use of this sarcastic distinction, and there can be little doubt that it 
made a deep impression on the mind of Lord Chesterfield. J We 



* We are told by Horace Walpole that Lord Chesterfield was once induced 
to attend the conventicle of Dr. Whitefield, and no doubt his lordship's rever- 
ence for that enthusiast was about as sincere as the occasional professions of 
his faith in the doctrines of the established church. 

At a later period of Lord Chesterfield's life, and about the time that Ju- 
nius so mysteriously disappeared, an attempt was made by the chief supporters 
of Whitefield to convert his lordship. The circumstance is related by Horace 
Walpole in a letter to Horace Mann, dated April 17, 1775. "Lady Gertrude 
Hotham (Lord Chesterfield's sister) had wit like all her brothers, but for many 
years had been a methodist. About two years ago, as the Earl was ill, she went 
with her primate, Lady Huntingdon^ to try to tempt him to one of their semi- 
naries in Wales, hoping to get at his soul by a cranny in his health. They 
extolled the prospects, and then there were such charming mountains. Hold, 
ladies, said he, I don't love mountains; when your ladyship's faith has removed 
the mountains, I will go thither with all my heart." 

t Lord Carteret moved to address the King to know who advised the re- 
moval of the Duke of Bolton and Lord Cobham from their regiments and what 
crimes were laid to their charge. 

X It has, perhaps, hitherto escaped observation that Junius refers to this 
Very debate in one of his letters on the dismissal of Sir Jeffery Amherst. Guarded 
as his expressions are he admits that he was a contemporary of the heroes of 



18 JUNIUS AND LOED TOWNSHEND. 

cannot, therefore, be surprised that after a lapse of twenty-six years 
his lordship should recal the circumstance and adopt this invidious 
distinction on this occasion. 

In comparing this letter with the writings of Lord Chesterfield 
it will not be necessary to remark upon every similitude of phra- 
seology in which the writer is found to agree with Junius. It will be 
sufficient to refer the reader to parallel passages from Junius and 
Lord Chesterfield, distinguishing such words or phrases in which they 
agree by italics. It is more important to trace the motives which 
could induce Lord Chesterfield to publish such a letter, and as al- 
most every paragraph contains some proof that Lord Chesterfield 
was the author, it will be desirable to quote a greater part of the 
letter that the reader may have the means of judging of the truth 
of this supposition. 

" The title under which I have the honour of addressing this 
letter to you, will not, I confess, immediately point you out to the 
eye of the public. It has been given by the compilers of the 
Court Calendar to Brigadier General Townshend, or not improbable 
that sagacious gentleman sent it to the press himself as an hint to 
the minister that such a command would be necessary for his 
Majesty's service, although he might prudently choose to stay at 
home when he received it." 

There is no proof that Lord Chesterfield was ever on terms of 
friendship with Lord Townshend. The author of the refutation in- 
timates that the writer of the letter had been caricatured by his 
lordship. This, as far as Lord Chesterfield is concerned, we have 
not been able to ascertain, but it is well known that Lord Chester- 
field opposed Lord Townshend's favourite scheme of the militia, 
and it is not, therefore, improbable that his lordship was the sub- 
ject of one or more of the Townshend caricatures. His lordship's 
most intimate friend, Lord Lyttleton, was a frequent subject of 
those satires. So far, therefore, it may be presumed Lord Chester- 
field was prepared to retaliate should a favourable opportunity 
occur. 

the great Walpolean battles, and older than his opponent Lord Hillsborough. 
"You set out with asserting that the Crown has an indisputable power of dis- 
missing its officers without assigning a cause. Not quite indisputable, my lord, 
for J have heard of addresses from Parliament to know who advised the dismis- 
sion of particular officers. I have heard of impeachments attending a wanton 
exertion of the prerogative and you, perhaps, may live to hear of them likewise. 
—Vol. Ill, p. 140. 



JUNIUS AND LOUD TOWNSHEND. 19 

" However, if envy should peevishly object against this discern- 
ment of fortune in the choice of her favourites, let it be boldly an- 
swered that independent of fortune* and her favours you have 
made the most distinguished honour of th e present war in a pecu- 
liar manner your own. The Goddess of blindness and caprice had 
certainly no share in the capitulation of Quebec. Ardent in the 
pursuit of glory and the applause of your country you generously 
violated the rules of war and risked the resentment of your supe- 
rior officer. You signed the articles of capitulation without his 
knowledge, and anxious for the preservation of your conquest, you 
appointed the staff of the garrison without even asking his consent. 
He might indeed, suspect the friendship you had long professed for 
him, but with the spirit of an old Roman the love of our country 
omnes omnium caritates complectitur. He might have ordered you 
into arrest for such an outrage to his authority. He was not insen- 
sible of the indignity, but you asked his pardon and languishing 
under his wounds he accepted your submission. Thus you carried 
your point — you received into your protection the capital of an em- 
pire larger than half the Roman conquests, and though you had 
formerly entered your protest against attacking the place, you alone 
enjoyed the honours of its being taken." 

The person here vindicated by the writer was highly esteemed 
by Lord Chesterfield. " The day after we had taken the island of 
Aix, your friend, Colonel Wolfe, publicly offered to do the business 
with five hundred men and three ships. "f 

The next paragraph of the letter contains a sarcasm against 
religion, and will remind the reader of a conspicuous trait both in 
the character of Junius and of Lord Chesterfield. The passage is 
omitted by Mr. Britton in his quotation of the paragraph. 

" Your appetite for glory being now fully satisfied, you descended 
from the heights of Abraham like Gideon — not the Gideon who dis- 
comfited the host of Midian with the sound of his trumpets — but 
like another illustrious of that name descending at the sign of his 
Majesty's arms from a delicious feast of turtle." 

* I plainly see that all human prudence, the wisest projects, and the best 
concerted schemes are vain and frivolous if fortune, that capricious, inconstant* 
and feminine deity, is not disposed to favour them. — Chesterfield. 

The greatest must submit to the capriciousness of fortune, though they 
can better than others improve the favourable moments. — lb. 

t Letter to his son, Nov. 4, 1757, 

c 2 



20 JUNIUS AND LORD TOWNSHEND. 

In the remaining part of this passage the writer again uses the 
word sagacious* He also omits to give General Wolfe his title of 
rank in the army. This proves not only a long and intimate ac- 
quaintance with General Wolfe, but it also indicates that the writer 
was not a military man, or he would not even under circumstances 
of long friendship have twice failed in so important a point in the 
estimation of military men. It may also be inferred from this in- 
advertence that the writer was of much higher rank than General 
Wolfe. 

But it has been observed that the " Letter," if not from the 
pen of a soldier, " was, at all events, written by a person well 
skilled in military affairs." As regards Lord Chesterfield, this 
shrewd observation may be said strictly to apply. For his lordship 
considered that every gentleman engaged in public affairs (except 
"lawyers and parsons," of whose understandings he had but a 
mean opinion),! ought to be well acquainted with military tactics. 
In accordance with these views, We find him recommending to his 
son his attending to the minutice of military affairs. Few officers, 
perhaps, even of the highest rank in the army, were so well 
acquainted with the routine of their duties as Lord Chesterfield. 

The next paragraph needs no comment. It refers to Lord 

Townshend's militia scheme, which Lord Chesterfield ridiculed and 

opposed. It also alludes to the conduct of Lord Townshend 

during the Rebellion in 1745. On both these points no person 

could be better qualified to mortify Lord Townshend than the Earl 

of Chesterfield. 

" Although I have justly given you the sole honour of your 

capitulation of Quebec, independent of fortune and her influence, 

yet let us not totally disclaim her favour and protection. Among 

heroes of ancient days the favour of the gods was always esteemed 

a pious proof of merit." 

"Fortune" says Lord Chesterfield, 

" fcorn to be controlled 
Stoops to the forward and the bold. 1 ' 

" Assurance and intrepidity, under the white banner of seeming 
modesty, clear the way to merit" 

* This is one of those offensive epithets which Junius frequently employed 
to annoy his adversaries, and bring contempt upon their understandings. 

f Lawyers and Parsons cannot be short.— Chesterfield. 



JUNIUS AND LOED TOWNSHEND. 21 

" I know," continues the writer of the letter ', " that our ingenU 
ous moderns have been reproached with plundering the shrines of 
antiquity, and ransacking the virtues of the dead, to erect a lying 
monument of fame to the living. I shall not be apprehensive of 
this reproach when I assert that the noblest praise ever given to 
Caesar — that of writing with the same spirit with which he 
fought, — is equally due to you for the letter you wrote from 
Quebec to the Secretary of State.* 1 Some malignant spirits, indeed, 
were offended at your not having paid one civil compliment to the 
memory of General Wolfe, or inserted one kind expression of esteem 
or affection with regard to his person. Surely some people are 
never to be satisfied. Permit me, sir, in your name, to ask them 
whether your warmest encomiums could have added to that uni- 
Tersal good opinion which the public had conceived of Mr. Wolfe's 
abilities and courage." 

This passage contains strong evidence that it came from the pen 
of Lord Chesterfield. As far as verbal peculiarities will convince, 
the following short sentence contains several that are to be found 
in the letter : " I cannot," says Lord Chesterfield, " like many of 
my contemporaries, rail at the wonderful degeneracy and corruption 
of these times, nor by sneering compliments to the ingenious, the 
sagacious moderns, intimate that they have no common sense." 

The charge of plundering the shrines of antiquity bears a 
strong resemblance to a humourous petition published in the Annual 
Register, 1758, in juxta position with two other similar contri- 
butions, — one avowedly from the pen of Lord Chesterfield. Both 
the other papers, though inferior in composition, bear evident 
marks of his lordship's style of writing. The petition here referred 
to is addressed to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, by 
whom, it is said, Lord Chesterfield was imposed upon in the pur- 
chase of the land on which the noble mansion of the family in 
May Fair now stands. 

The allusion to Caesar may be contrasted with Lord Chester- 
field's character of that hero. 

" Julius Caesar joined business with pleasure so properly that 



* The following parallel connects this paragraph with the writings of 
Junius: — " Every one will acknowledge that Lord Townshend was at Quebec, 
for every one remembers his letter from thence, and perhaps Philo can tell who 
the secretary was."— -Junius, vol. II., p. 480. 



22 JUNIUS AND LORD TOWNSHEND. 

they mutually assisted each other, and though he was the husband 
of all the wives in Rome, he found time to be one of the best 
scholars, — almost the best orator, and absolutely the best general 
there." 

It will not, perhaps, strike the hasty reader that the same train 
of thoughts was passing in the mind of the writer when he com- 
posed the above paragraph as had occurred to Lord Chesterfield, 
ten years be/ore, while Avriting to his son." 

" Every rational being, I take it for granted, proposes to him- 
self some object more important than mere respiration and 
obscure animal existence. He desires to distinguish himself 
among his fellow creatures, and alicai negotio intentus, prceclari 
facinoris, aut artis bonce, famam qiuerit. Caesar, when embarking 
in a storm, said that it was not necessary he should live, but that 
it was absolutely necessary he should get to the place to which 
he was going. And Pliny leaves mankind the only alternative 
either of doing what deserves to be written, or of writing what 
deserves to be read." 

It is also remarkable that in this letter Lord Chesterfield warns 
his son against those faults in composition for which Lord Towns- 
hend was so severely critisized by the letter writer and by Junius. 

"Your business is negociation abroad and oratory at home. 
What figure can you make in either case if your style be inele- 
gant ; I do not say bad. Imagine yourself writing an office letter 
to a Secretary of State, which letter is to be read by the whole 
Cabinet Council, and very possibly afterwards laid before Parlia- 
ment; any one barbarism, solecism, or vulgarism in it would, 
in a very few days, circulate through the whole kingdom to your 
disgrace and ridicule. For instance, I will suppose you had 
written the following letter from the Hague to the Secretary 
of State at London, and leave you to suppose the consequences 
of it:— 

My Lord, — I had last night the honour of your Lordship's 
letter of the 24th, and will set about doing the orders contained 
therein, and if so be that I can get that affair done by the next post 
I will not fail, for to give your Lordship an account of it by next 
post. I have told the French Minister as how ihat if 'that affair be 
not soon concluded your Lordship would think it all along of him, 
and that he must have neglected for to have wrote to his court 



JUNIUS AND LOUD TOWNSHEND. 23 

about it. I must beg leave to put your Lordship in mind as how 
that I am full three-quarters in arrears, and if so be that I do not 
very soon receive, at least, one half year, I shall cut a very bad 
figure, for this here place is very dear. I shall be vastly beholden to 
your Lordship for that there mark of your favour, and so / rest or 
remain yours, &c. 

" You will tell me possibly that this is a caricatura and an illi- 
beral and inelegant style. I will admit it, but assure you, at the 
same time, that a dispatch, with less than half these faults, would 
blow you up for ever." 

To those conversant with the human mind, and its associations, 
this proof will convey more weight than mere verbal similarities. 

The use of the words, " surely," " permit me," which occur in 
the foregoing paragraph, has been included by Mr. Simons, in the 
evidence that the letter was written by Junius. These terms are 
of frequent occurrence in the writings of Lord Chesterfield. But a 
still more remarkable phrase occurs in the next paragraph, not to 
be met with in Junius, which identifies the writer of the " Letter" 
with Lord Chesterfield. 

" You had only to temper the ardour of the soldiers in the pur- 
suit, and, / dare swear, you led them on as regularly and as 
methodically, according to the rules of war, as your friend and 
favorite, Lord George, slow marched the cavalry at the battle of 
Minden." 

" I dare swear" says Lord Chesterfield in a letter* to the Duke 
of Newcastle, "you well know that Mr. Farrington is dead."— 
Letters, vol. IV., p. 257. 

" Since I have mentioned the Minden hero, give me leave to 
ask you, for you are in his confidence, what has become of him. 
Is he retired (Scipio and others have done it) from the hopes of 
ambition and the views of glory ? Retired to his late purchase 
among his faithful friends the Scots ? At least to him they have 
been faithful." 

As the allusion to Scipio in this part of the letter has been 
considered by Mr. Simons, to be one of the peculiarities of Junius, 



* This letter is worth referring to, since it shows how well qualified Lord 
Chesterfield was, in after life, to carry on the secret correspondence of Junius 
with Woodfall. A similar instance of duplicity will be found in a letter to 
Lord Lyttleton. — Memoirs, vol. I., p. 87. 



24 JUNIUS AND IiORD TOWNSHENI). 

it may be worth while to observe that of all the heroes of antiquity, 
Scipio was Lord Chesterfield's favourite. He makes frequent refer- 
ence to him in his speeches and writings, one example will suffice. 

" A Scipio may tear his papers when he can say, come and let 
us thank the gods," &c. 

Lord Chesterfield's contempt of the Scots will be proved when 
the acknowledged productions of Junius are reviewed. 

The writer of the "Letter" having dropt Lord Townshend, enters 
into the conduct of Lord Geo. Sackville at Minden, and ironically 
contrasts the cool behaviour of that nobleman, with the spirit and 
energy displayed by the Marquis of Granby on that occasion. 

" What pity that all these maxims, the wisdom at once, and 
glory of a Revieiv should be thus totally destroyed by one short 
hour's experience." 

Lord Chesterfield evinced great contempt for soldiers not em- 
ployed in active service. "As to what is now called discipline, 
I mean the punctilios usually observed at a Review" &c. 

It would be tedious to point out every minute resemblance 
in the style and sentiments of this writer in comparison with Lord 
Chesterfield. The most prominent passages in the remaining 
paragraphs will therefore only be selected. 

" Danger and difficulty seem to him (Lord Granby) motives of 
obedience to the orders he receives, and, undoubtedly, he wants 
Lords George's penetrating spirit, by which he should know before 
he tried them, how many things are impossible" 

" Sense" says Lord Chesterfield " must distinguish between 
what is impossible and what is only difficult, and spirit and perse- 
verance will get the better of the latter.'"^ 

This precept is frequently urged by Lord Chesterfield as the 
result of his own experience. His lordship also agrees with the 
writer that want of spirit is too often the cause of failure in mili- 
tary affairs. In reference to this American expedition, he says, 
" This is most certain, that we have force enough in America to 



* To vulgar minds it may appear unattainable, because vulgar minds make 
no distinction between the highly difficult and the impossible. — Junius. 

In this example we find the writer of "the letter," Lord Chesterfield, and 
Junius expressing the same sentiment, but here, as in every other parallel ad- 
duced, it will be found that Lord Chesterfield is the author, nor can the writer 
of "the letter" or Junius be charged with plagiarism since the sentiments oc- 
cur in Lord Chesterfield's posthumous works. 



JITNIVS AND LORD IOWNSBEND. 25 

eat up the French alive in Canada and Quebec, if we have but 
skill and spirit enough to exert it properly, but of that I am 
modest enough to doubt." 

The opinion of the writer of the Letter on the policy of the 
German War is explicitly given. 

" I am no friend to Continental measures ; a bitter enemy to 
them in the extreme to which they are now carried. I am not so 
dazzled with the abilities and success of Duke Ferdinand, as not to 
see great faults, and great good fortune. Through all the glories 
with which the British arms are environed, I can see the lives of 
our brave countrymen, I think, much too prodigally lavished 
away, certainly beyond all proportion of numbers when compared 
with the rest of the army." 

After having given a minute account of the conduct of the 
British troops, and the disproportioned slaughter of them at Min- 
den, he exclaims," 

" Can an Englishman read this account without indignation ? 
Can he see, without horror, the blood of his countrymen thus 
lavishly poured forth in this Germanic warfare ? In any decisive 
action, let the British soldier bleed ; let him die — even for Hano- 
ver. His blood may not be wholly useless to his country, nor his 
death unprofitable to that common cause of mankind liberty." 

Lord Chesterfield's strenuous opposition to Hanoverian prede- 
lictions was conspicuous during the " Great Walpolean Battles," 
and is said to have fostered a strong resentment against his 
lordship in the mind of George the Second, — Hanover was at that 
time the constant theme of Lord Chesterfield's virulent invectives 
in parliament and in the periodicals of the day. " The case of the 
Hanover Troops" and the " Vindication" of that pamphlet were 
joint productions of Lord Chesterfield and Mr. "Waller. The sta- 
tistical details probably fell to the share of Mr. Waller ; the more 
polished paragraphs are evidently from the pen of Lord Chester- 
field, these will at once remind the reader of the style and manner 
of Junius. 

" If these are but the blossoms of the late boasted change of 
men and measures, — blossoms stained too with the deepest public 
and private perfidy, what are the fruits we must expect or rather 
dread from them ? Power is and must be maintained by the same 
means by which it is acquired: and if we are to judge by the price 



26 JUNIUS AND LORD TOWNSHEND. 

now paid for it, what will be the purchase of the remainder and 
the consequences of the bargain ?" — Vindication of the case of the 
Hanover Troops. 

" The same measures" (says Junius in his first letter, 1767) 
" by which an abandoned profligate is advanced to power, must be 
observed to maintain him in it." — Vol. II., p. 455. 

Having given vent to his feelings on the subject of Hanover, 
the writer resumes his attack on Lord G. Sackville : — 

"If, however, there could have remained a doubt upon the 
minds of the public with regard to Lord George's behaviour at the 
battle of Minden, after having read his trial, here comes the battle 
of Warburg. No stronger testimony though one rose from the dead" 

Lord Chesterfield has as irreverently used this quotation from 
scripture in one of his letters to his son : — 

" I say no more to you on this subject. You have Mr. Harte 
with you to enforce it, so that, in short, you have Moses and the 
Prophets, if you will not believe them neither will you believe 
though one rose from the dead." — Letter 80. 

In the next paragraph the author criticises Lord Townshend's 
letter from Quebec, and ridicules (as Junius seven years later did) 
the expression that the Highlanders took to their broad sivords. 
The impression that this seems to have made upon the writer 
proves that he was sensitive to any impropriety in composition, 
even under circumstances where a slip of this kind might be excused. 

Lord Townshend's talent for caricatures is next animadverted on. 
This is said to have been the chief source of the writer's indignation. 

" If his lordship is in general more famed for artifice and that 
more useful part of human wisdom called cunning* yet surely your 
tricking General Monckton of the capitulation was a masterpiece 
of dexterity. If my lord excels in that well-bred species of wit 
known by the name of sneering, are not you equally excellent in 
that good natured species of painting called caricatura, the amuse- 
ment of your idle hours?" 

Nothing was more offensive to Lord Chesterfield than the 
species of wit here said to have been indulged in by Lord Geo. 
Townshend. " Raillery," says his lordship, " requires a very light 
and steady hand to administer it. A little too strong it may be 

* " In a great business there is nothing so fatal as cunning; manage- 
ment."— Chesterfield's Letter to his Son." 



JUNIUS AND LORD TOWNSHEND. 27 

mistaken for offence, and a little too smooth it may be thought a 
sneer, which is a most odious thing." 

Junius has given more than one instance of his dislike at any 
approach to this " well-bred kind of wit."* 

The writer of the letter thus sums up the qualifications of his 
two heroes : — 

"These are the great outlines of your characters, and if we 
should examine every the minutest feature,] we shall find not a 
striking resemblance only, but of such a peculiar land as cannot 
be mistaken for any one else. If I may be forgiven for deviating 
into poetry, 

Nought but yourselves can be your parallels. 

" Hereafter, I mean in our future history, one character of 
praise will be sufficient for both. It will be impossible to separate 
and disunite your merits or the honours with which they are to be 
rewarded. In public life, the same military virtues, the same 
appetite for fighting, and the same abhorrence of retreating, — the 
same perplexed passion for intrigue, business, politics, ministerial 
confidence, and parliamentary debates. In private life the same 
spirit of calumny and caricatura, the same insolence of manners 
and arrogance of behaviour, the same vetus et insita families 
superbia." 

" In these last instances, however, you must forgive me, sir, if I 
think his lordship, whether from genius or some luckier accident, 
may justly claim a small degree of superiority. He was not born 
indeed, but he was educated from his earliest infancy, in the house 
of royalty, Prima ab infantia eductus in domo regnatrice. Here, it 
is confessed, there was some danger of his perverting those precious 
instincts with which nature had so liberally endowed him. He 
might unhappily have learned to become humane, affable, and 

* "I speak to men and to their experience, and will not descend to 
answer the little sneering sophistry of |a collegian." — Vol. II., p. 305. 

f The author of the " Letter" gives another example in the postscript of 
this kind of construction : — 

" When they would have received with pleasure any the least hopes," &c. 

As this was not a common mode of construction at that time, it may be 
worth while to quote the following parallels from Lord Chesterfield : — 

" Practice them upon every the least occasion." — Letter to his Slon. 

" and advise them to be watchful of any the least innovations of any 

part of it:'— Works, Vol. II., p. 42. 



28 JUNIUS AND LORD TOWNSHEND. 

condescending, — to compassionate the follies, to forgive the errors 
of his fellow creatures, and to pay a sacred reverence to human 
nature. Such are the examples, indeed, of all the princes upon 
earth of a royal education" 

" But he totally escaped these pernicious errors as unwounded, 
except another slight scratch in his reputation, as at the battle of 
Minden. By a peculiar and wonderful strength of virtue in his 
constitution, he escaped even the poisonous breathings of flattery, 
that incense of courts so profusely offered up to the young heirs of 
greatness, and without which no human creature, not even a lord, 
could dare to be insolent. How well he maintained the not too 
humble consciousness of his own worth, with what modest confi- 
dence he always exerted his abilities, let his behaviour at his trial 
be an everlasting testimony. It should have been a full vindication 
of his conduct at Minden. There, at least, his complexion was 
unvaried, his eye firm and unshaken, his whole deportment rather 
in the extreme of courage than liable even to the suspicion of 
cowardice. There he certainly wanted not that presence of mind 
which is the first great excellence of a general, nor did that weak- 
ness of nerves^ for which a man is no more accountable than for any 
other error of his constitution,* affect him on an occasion that 
would have made many a gallant spirit tremble. He boldly in- 
sulted his judge, overawed the resolution of the court, gave his 
own asseveration of his innocence (the only uncontradicted evi- 
dence he gave), and triumphed in the success of those assevera- 
tions : a noble example, and worthy of your imitation." 

" But you, sir, should disdain the servile spirit of imitation; it is 
beneath a genius like yours. You should determine yourself to be 
an original for others to imitate, you should be apprehensive of the 
usual fate of imitators, who generally copy rather errors than excel- 
lencies, as indeed it is easier to bend the head like Alexander or 
Boscawen, than to imitate their courage and intrepidity. f" 

As we approach the conclusion of this extraordinary letter, the 



* "I am convinced," writes Lord Chesterfield, " that a light supper, a good 
night's rest, and a fine morning, have sometimes made a hero of the same man, 
who by an indigestion, a restless night, and a rainy morning, would have 
proved a coward." — Letter 117. 

•f- " Like true imitators, we only ape their imperfections, and awkwardly 
copy those parts, which all reasonable Frenchmen themselves contemn. — Ches- 
terfield." 



JUNIUS AND LORD TOWNSHEND. 29 

paragraphs present stronger features, indicative of the writer. The 
irony becomes more severe ; the author's contempt for greatness 
without merit more apparent, while the sentences furnish several 
instances of agreement in the sentiments, and expressions used 
by Junius and by Lord Chesterfield. 

But the most singular feature in the " Letter," is contained in a 
paragraph above quoted, wherein the writer betrayed his resentment 
against Geo. II. If the motives we have assigned to Lord Chester- 
field be admitted, the apparent inconsistency of abusing loth the 
King and Lord G. Sackville is at once explained, but if any doubt 
remain, let the following passages from Lord Chesterfield's corres- 
pondence, when suffering under similar disappointments, be compared 
with the sentiments expressed in this remarkable paragraph. 

" As Kings are begotten, and born like other men, it is to be 
presumed that they are of the human species, and perhaps, had 
they the same education, they might prove like other men ; but 
flattered from their cradles, their hearts are corrupted, and their 
heads are turned so that they seem to be a species by themselves. 
No King ever said to himself 

Homo sum, nihil humani a me alienum puto. 

" The rulers of the earth are all worth knowing, they suggest 
moral reflections, and the respect that one naturally has for God's 
vicegerents here on earth is greatly increased by acquaintance with 
them. — Letter to his Son, p. 308. 

" The emperor, by your account, seems to be very well for an 
emperor, who, by being above other monarchs in Europe, may 
justly be supposed to have had a proportionably worse education. 
I find by your account of him that he has been trained up to 
homicide, the only science in which princes are ever instructed, 
and with good reason, as their greatness and glory depend upon 
the numbers of their fellow creatures which their ambition exter- 
minates. If a sovereign should by great accident deviate into* 
moderation, justice, and clemency, what a contemptible figure 
would he make in the catalogue of princes." — Letter to his Son. 

We should dwell longer on the proofs contained in this letter, 
if the facts to be adduced as evidence that Lord Chesterfield was 

* Charteris now and then deviated into honesty. — Junius. 



30 JUNIUS AND LORD TOWNSHEND. 

the author of the writings of Junius, were not far more conclusive 
than those derived from this source. All that has been attempted 
to be shewn, is, that the circumstances which identify Lord 
Chesterfield to be the author of the " Letter" are stronger than 
those which have convinced many that it was written by Junius, 
for, in addition to similarity of style and verbal peculiarities, 
the personal feelings of the writer have been traced, and so far as 
circumstances will permit, have been brought home to Lord 
Chesterfield. 

As the hostility of Junius towards Lord Townshend was of short 
duration, (although his lordship was one of the first singled out 
by that anonymous writer for the exercise of hi6 satire and abuse), 
it may be well to complete this part of the subject by references 
to the letters of Junius, in which the character of Lord Townshend 
is introduced.* 

In the first of these letters Junius says — " I have been for some 
time in the country\, which has prevented your hearing sooner from 
me. I find you and your brother printers have got greatly into a 
sort of knack of stuffing your papers with flummery upon two 



* The letters IV., V., VI., VII., and VIII. of Woodfall's Miscellaneous 
Collection (comprising a period of only two months) refer chiefly to Lord 
Townshend's appointment as Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. 

f Here is a distinction which attaches strong suspicion to the Earl of 
Chesterfield. On referring to his lordship's letters, it will be seen he was at 
Blackheath at this time, and left town when Junius ceased writing. The fol- 
lowing table will distinctly prove the connection : — 

Dates of Junius's Letters. Dates of the Earl of Chesterfield's Letters. 

London, April 28, 1767. London, April 6, 1767. 

~ May 28 ' — Mav 5 

— June 24, May 5 ' 

— * Aug. 25, — June 1, 

— Sept. 16, Blackheath, July 2, 

— Oct. 12 

' 22' Blackheath, — 9, 

— — 31, London, Oct. 30, 

There is another circumstance connected with these dates that deserves 
attention. It will be seen here, (as throughout the whole of Junius's corre- 
spondence) that they are distinct from each other. The letters of the Earl of 
Chesterfield to his correspondents, seldom, if ever, were written so as to 
interfere with the labours of Junius. 

As these facts are material to the elucidation of the question another 
instance may be traced for the satisfaction of the reader. The Earl of Chester- 
field left London the first week in November, 1767 : during this month, and 
the greater part of December, no letter appeared from Junius. 



JUNIUS AND LORD TOWNSHEND. 31 

certain brothers* who are, labour-in-vain, endeavouring to force 
themselves out of the world's contempt." 

" I am not a stranger to this par nobile frairum. I have served 
under the one and have been forty times promised to be served by 
the other. I don't think it possible to characterise either without 
having recourse to the other; but anybody who knows one of 
them may easily obtain an idea of the other! Thus, now, sup- 
pose you acquainted with the Chancellor, take away his ingenuity 
and a something that at times looks like good nature, but it is 
not, and you have the direct and actual character of the peer, a 
boaster without spirit and a pretender to wit without a grain of 
sense, in a word, a vain glorious idler without one single good 

quality of head or heart. I hope his affairs with Lord and 

Mr. are the only instances of his setting out with unne- 
cessary insolence, and ending with shameful tameness.f But is 
such a man likely to please the brave Irish, whose hasty tempers 
or whose blunders may sometimes lead them into a quarrel, but 
whose swords always carry them through it." — WoodfalVs Junius, 
vol. II, p. 468. 

Whether there be any semblance of truth in the writer's asser- 
tion that he had served under Lord Townshend, so as to reconcile 
the fact with the situation of Lord Chesterfield's former varied 
employments, would be difficult to prove. It is, however, well 
known that Lord Chesterfield raised a regiment during the rebellion 
of 1745, and that Lord Townshend at that time held an important 
command in the army. The author of the " Letter" alludes to the 
conduct of Lord Townshend at that critical period. 

" The Highlanders would not have made such an obstinate 
resistance at the battle of Culloden, or rendered the sword and 
target so justly terrible to the British soldiery, if even your 
perfect veneration for the person of your royal commander could 
have prevailed over your natural antipathy to a northern campaign." 

As regards Charles Townshend (who was Chancellor of the 
Exchequer at this time), it is presumed that Lord Chesterfield 

* Lord Townshend and his brother the celebrated Charles Townshend. 
The latter died a few weeks after the date of this letter. 

t These were not the only affairs of this kind in which Lord Townshend 
was engaged. In 1773 he met Lord Bellamont in Mary-le-bone fields, tnd 
ended the long protracted quarrel by wounding his opponent. — London Mag., 
Vol. XLIL, p. 87-97. 



32 JXTNIUS AND LORD TOWNSHEND. 

had applied to him on the subject of Mr. Stanhope's preferment, 
and it is probable that on several other occasions Lord Chester- 
field had been promised to be served by that gentleman. The 
manner in which Lord Chesterfield sometimes speaks* of Charles 
Townshend savours of disapprobation and resentment. " Charles 
Townshend," observed his lordship in 1765, "will play booty;" 
and it was at this time that Lord Chesterfield is believed to have 
sent the following bon mot to Woodfall: "We hear that the 
Right Honorable Mr. Charles Townshend is indisposed at his 
house in Oxfordshire of a pain in his side, but it is not said in 
which side." 

The characters of the two brothers are ably discriminated 
by Junius, and he proves himself to have been well acquainted 
with the parties he so ingeniously contrasted. 

The "affair with Lord ," relates to a meeting 

between Lord Albemarle and Lord Townshend, which is thus 
noticed by Horace Walpole, Nov. 4, 1760. "An extraordinary 
event has happened to-day, — George Townshend sent a challenge 
to Lord Albemarle desiring him to be with a second in the fields. 
Lord Albemarle took Colonel Crawford and went to Mary-bone ; 
Geo. Townshend bespoke Lord Buckingham, who loves a secret 
too well not to tell it ; he communicated it to Stanley, who went 
to St. James's and acquainted Mr. Caswall, the captain on guard. 
The latter took an hackney coach, drove to Mary-bone, and saw 
one pair; after waiting ten minutes the others came. Towns- 
hend made an apology to Lord Albemarle for making him wait. 
Oh, said he, men of spirit don't want apologies ; come, let us 
begin what we came here for. At that instant out stept Caswall 
from his coach and begs their pardon as his superior officers, 
but told them they were his prisoners. He desired Mr. Towns- 
hend and Lord Buckingham to return to their coach ; he would 
carry back Lord Albemarle and Crawford in his. He did, and 
went to acquaint the King, who has commissioned some of the 



* There must have been a trick in Charles Townshend's speaking for the 
Preliminaries, for he is infinitely above having an opinion. — Chesterfield to 
his Son, 1762. 

Charles Townshend has given himself more ministerial airs than Lord 
Chatham will, I believe, approve of. However, since Lord Chatham has 
thought fit to withdraw himself from that House, he cannot well do without 
Charles's abilities to manage it as his deputy.— Feb. 13, 17 67. 



JUNIUS AND LORD TOWNSHEND. 33 

matrons of the army to examine the affair and make it up. All 
this while I don't know what the quarrel was, but they hated one 
another so much on the Duke's account, that a slight word 
would easily make their aversions boil over."* 

It does not appear in what manner the quarrel was made 
up, or whether the author of the " Letter" was discovered, though 
it was, perhaps, through his interference that the duel was 
prevented, and the steps which he took to save Lord Albemarle 
possibly led to the detection of the writer. Lord Albemarle was 
charged only with encouraging the publication,* and probably he 
had no suspicion of its author or of his motives for writing the 
" Letter." 

That Lord Albemarle should have been suspected of having 
promoted the circulation of this libel on Lord Townshend, may be 
accounted for by the relative position of the parties. Lord Towns- 
hend accepted the command in America after Lord Albemarle had 
declined the appointment ; the latter might, therefore, feel jealous 
of the reputation Lord Townshend had acquired in the capitulation 
of Quebec. Whether Lord Albemarle was much pressed to accept 
the command, is doubtful ; for, notwithstanding the plausibility of 
Lord Barrington's letter on the subject, it appears more than pro- 
bable that his lordship hoped to obtain the preferment for his 
brother.f The following is Lord Barrington's letter of congratula- 
tion to Colonel Townshend, Dec. 30. 1758 : — 

* It is said the quarrel arose from a late publication. — London Chronicle, 
Nov. 1760. 

"t Lord Barrington to Viscount Ligonier, Oct. 14, 1758. 

" I am very sorry to hear that there is even a possibility of General Bos- 
cawen not going with the Expedition, especially as your lordship seems to think 
there will not be time to substitute any other Major-General in his place. By 
these means my brother is in danger of being second in command, and who- 
ever is second may soon be first. I use the term danger, because nothing is so 
unfortunate as being placed at the head of a great enterprize to which one is 
not equal. Though Colonel Barrington served all the last war, it was as 
captain, aid-de-camp, or volunteer. He has a good understanding, and is very 
much resolved to do his duty ; but I do not think him qualified for the im- 
portant office of a Commander-in-Chief, much less when that command has 
been declined already by Major-Generai Mostyn and Lord Albemarle, as think- 
ing themselves unequal to it. I have, in some measure, foreseen this event, 
from the willingness which has universally appeared to be excused from this 
service ; and, therefore, I have begged more than once of your Lordship and 
Mr. Pitt, that two officers, at least, of superior rank might be sent, — the only 
favour I have desired for my friend, my brother, and my heir. I again depre- 
cate Colonel Barrington being so near the command, and I entreat of your 
Lordship to recommend some other Major-General to His Majesty in case Mr. 
Boscawen should be excused. If this cannot be, I must submit, as I always 



34 JUNIUS AND LORD TOWNSHEND. 

" And now, my dear George, allow me most sincerely to con- 
gratulate you on the honour you have done yourself by the very 
noble and (I think) wise step you have taken on this occasion. / 
hope officers with regiments will he ashamed to decline service any 
where after the example you have set; and, in my opinion, it is for 
the King's service, nay, I may add, his honour, that such a conduct 
should not be long unnoticed or unrewarded by him. You know I 
never flatter you, but I have particular pleasure in such oppor- 
tunities of telling you my mind as these." 

The slur cast by Lord Barrington upon officers declining service, 
is evidently levelled at Lord Albemarle. 

It will be seen by the last sentence in the foregoing paragraph 
from Junius (p. 31), that the writer was partial to the Irish nation, 
though his encomium by no means indicates that he was an Irish- 
man. It exhibits the friendly feeling which Lord Chesterfield 
evinced whenever he spoke of his " adopted country ;" — not the 
spontaneous affection of a legitimate offspring, but the warm 
esteem which the recollection of kindness will produce. 

In letter V., [Woodfall's edition,] Junius professes to supply Lord 
Townshend with the outlines of a caricature, in which several new 
characters are introduced, and, among the rest, Lord Shelburne 
and Colonel Barre. 

The difficulty of reconciling the letters of Junius with the situ- 
ation and connections of many of the candidates, first caused their 
authenticity to be doubted. But they have been given to the world 
on pretty good authority ; they also contain internal evidence that 
the greater part are genuine Letters of Junius. But as far as regards 
the two in which the names of Lord Shelburne and Colonel 
Barre are mentioned, there does not appear to be the shadow of a 
doubt that they, at least, are genuine : for the publisher, in his 
notices to correspondents, acknowledged that they came from his 
correspondent C. 



will to the King's pleasure ; but in this one instance I shall submit with reluct- 
ance and concern. 

" Your Lordship, I think, will be of opinion that whoever has the chief 
command under General Hopson, should have some distinction, and that he 
will want an aid-de-camp ; and, therefore, if my brother is to be second in 
command, I hope you will propose to the King that he should serve as Major 
(not Brigadier) General. Colonel Webbe acted as such under Lord Loudon in 
America from the beginning without any commission." — Political Life of Lord 
Barrington, page 44. 



JTJNITJS AND LORD TOWNSHEND. 35 

In the letter before us, the figures of Lord Shelburne and 
Colonel Barre are thus to be delineated. 

" There is still a young man* my lord, who, I think, will make 
a capital figure in the piece. His features are too happily marked 
to be mistaken. A single line in his face will be sufficient to give 
us the heir apparent of Loyola and all the College. A little more 
of the devil, my lord, if you please, about the eyebrows — that's 
enough — a perfect Malagrida I protest. So much for his person ; 
as for his mind, a blinking bull dogf placed near him, will form a 
very natural type of all his good qualities." 

In a subsequent letter, dated 7th October, 1767, (which is also 
authenticated by a notice from the printer to his friend and corres- 
pondent CJ, the dog is again introduced. The letter was announced 
— "The Grand Council upon the affairs of Ireland, after eleven 
adjournments." 

The dramatis personce of the Council are — 

Tilbury (fuddled) Earl of Northington. 

Judge Jefferyes Earl Camden. 

Caution, without foresight . . Mr. Conway. 

Malagrida Lord Shelburne. 

Boutdeville (sulky) Lord Townshend. 

A chair left empty for the High Treasurer (the Duke of Grafton), 
detained by a hurry of business at Newmarket. 
A dog barks and wakens Tilbury, who starts up. 
" Tilbury. — Zounds ! my lord, do you keep bull dogs in your 
house ? 

Malagrida. — No, my lord; it's but a mungrel.J Your true 
English bull dog never quits his hold, but this cur plays fast and 
loose just as I bid him ; he worries a man one moment, and fawns 
upon him the next." 

The Council breaks up, and leaves Malagrida to soliloquize. 

" What a negro's skin must I have if this shallow fellow could 

see my meaning in my face. Now will I skulk away to — — , 

where I will betray or misrepresent every syllable I have heard, 

ridicule their persons, blacken their characters, fawn upon the man 



* Lord Shelburne. f Colonel Barre. 

X Colonel Barre was a native of Ireland, though of French extraction 
hence the sarcasm of mungrel. 

D 2 



6b JUNIUS AND LOKD TOWNSHEND. 

who hears me, until I have an opportunity of biting even him to 
the heart." 

Junius, in his reply to an answer to this letter, says : — 

" One word more, and I have done. Did it become him who 
has undertaken the defence of a whole ministry, to forget the dog ? 
This mungrel, that barks, and bites, and fawns, has, nevertheless, 
a share in Council ; and, in the opinion of the best judges, cuts 
full as good a figure in it as his master." 

The resentment of Junius towards Lord Shelburne, continued 
as long as his lordship remained in office. On the 22nd October, 
1768, (nearly a twelvemonth after the above was written), Junius 
again introduced Lord Shelburne to the public, and described him 
in terms more offensive than even the portrait he had sketched for 
him in the character of Malagrida. 

" The Earl of Shelburne had initiated himself in business by 
carrying messages between the Earl of Bute and Mr. Fox, and 
was for some time a favourite with both. Before he was an 
ensign he thought himself fit to be a general and to be a leading 
minister before he ever saw a public office. The life of this 
young man is a satire on mankind. The treachery which deserts 
a friend, might be a virtue compared to the fawning baseness 
which attaches itself to a declared enemy. Lord Chatham became 
his idol, introduced him into the most difficult department of the 
state, and left him there to shift for himself. It was a masterpiece 
of revenge. Unconnected, unsupported, he remains in office with- 
out interest or dignity, as if the income were an equivalent for 
all loss of reputation. Without spirit or judgment to take an 
advantageous moment of retiring, he submits to be insulted as 
long as he is paid for it. But even this abject conduct will avail 
him nothing. Like his great archetype, the vapour on which 
he rose deserts him, and now, 

* Fluttering his pennons vain, plumb down he drops/ " 

At the time these letters were written, Lord Shelburne was 
Secretary of State for the Southern Department, and Colonel 
Barre (his confidential friend) was Vice Treasurer of Ireland. 
It would have been absolute insanity in either to have written 
such libels on themselves. With Lord Chesterfield the case was 



JUNIUS AND LORD TOWNSHEND. 37 

different. He was at that time neglected by every Minister, and he 
had just experienced the disappointment of having the doors of the 
House of Commons closed against his son. His only reliance in 1 767, 
was on the Duke of Grafton ; and therefore his Grace was spared 
until the arrangements for the new Parliament were completed. 

The third letter of the Townshend series is an answer to a 
writer in the Public Advertiser* who had undertaken to vindicate 
Lord Townshend against the aspersion of a correspondent 
under the signature No Ghost, and who (if not Junius himself J 
was evidently a person well known to that writer. This letter 
is signed Moderator. There is a vein of ironical humour run- 
ning through the whole of it, that if it were not for its length we 
should be tempted to lay it at once before the reader as a specimen 
of Lord Chesterfield's lively manner of writing. The following 
extract, however, deserves notice from the parallel passage it 
contains, which not only connects this letter with the more au- 
thentic publications of Junius, but affords another instance of 
similarity in the use of a phrase rarely found in other writers. 

" Philo Veritatis asserts that his hero, Lord Townshend, gave 
proofs of his bravery at Minden and Quebec. No Ghost denies 
the fact, upon the presumed impossibility of his transporting 
himself from one of these places to the other in the space of ten 
days, unless he could fly, and that very fast too. Now flying 
being a quality which Philo Veritatis does not choose to ascribe 
(whatever belief it might gain ivith the publicj] to his hero, an- 
swers this in somewhat a new way. " This objection," says he, 
"has no weight, and is made only to introduce a scrap of Latin and a 
witticism. This may be a very good answer at cross purposes, 
but it is, I confess, a very whimsical one in the present case." — 
WoodfalVs Junius, Vol. II., p. 478. 

The application of the passage of the Provoked Husband in 

* Philo Veritatis. 

f The genuiness of this letter may be still further authenticated by com- 
paring the similarity of sentiment contained in the following parallel, rendered 
the more remarkable by its singularity: — 

Junius. — "When once a man is determined to believe, the very absurdity 
of the doctrine confirms him in his faith. 

Chesterfield.— "The fact will appear so incredible that it will certainly 
be believed, the only difficulty will be how to account for it." 

The credulity of the vulgar and their fondness for the marvellous, levelled 
at in each of these examples, proves the writer to have been a sceptic. 



38 JUNIUS AND LORD TOWNSHEND. 

which the phrase " cross purposes'''' occurs (in this instance used 
by the writer as his own composition), is acknowledged in a sub- 
sequent letter to have been borrowed from Sir John Brute." 
" Now, Mr. Woodfall, I shall make but one reflection, and that I 
shall borrow from Sir John Brute. This may be a very good 
answer, for aught I know, at cross purposes, but it is a damned 
whimsical one to a people in our circumstances." — Wood/all's 
Junius, Vol. III., p. 212. The writer, however, at a later date, 
under the signature Junius, adopted the phrase " cross purposes," 
and used it as his own. 

" This, indeed, would have been a most extraordinary way of 
declaring the law of parliament, and what I presume no man whose 
understanding is not at cross purposes with itself could possibly 
understand." — Vol. I, p. 520. 

" That worthy lawyer is never at cross purposes with himself, 
and / dare say would have maintained the same doctrine in his 
closet which he has delivered for the instruction of the public." — 
Vol. III., p. 205. 

Lord Chesterfield says that his friend Lyttleton was often so 
wrapped up in thought that he did not know his most intimate 
acquaintance by sight, and "answered them as if he were at cross- 
purposes." And in one of the papers of TJie World, his lordship 
quotes Sir John Brute,* thereby shewing the impression that cha- 
racter had made on him. But enough has been said to authenti- 
cate the Letter signed Moderator, and connect it with the 
"Letter" to Brigadier Townshend, we therefore pass on to the 
remainder of the series. 

Letter Vllf is entitled " Grand council upon the affairs of 

* A gentleman is every man who, with a tolerable suit of clothes, a sword 
by his side, and a watch and snuff-box in his pocket, asserts himself to be a 
gentleman, swears with energy that he will be treated as such, and that he 
will cut the throat of any man who presumes to say the contrary. 

He may abuse and starve his own wife, daughters or sisters, he may 
seduce those of other men, particularly his friends, with inviolate Honour, 
because, as Sir John Brute very justly observes, he wears a sword. — Mis. Works, 
Vol. II., p. 202-3. 

f This and the next letter are remarkable from having been attributed to 
Edmund Burke. It is no less singular that the next communication from 
Junius was a bond fide speech of Mr. Burke's, sent with a short preface by 
Junius for insertion in the Public Advertiser. It is possible that this stratagem 
was resorted to by Junius to keep alive the conjecture that Burke was the 
author of the Report of the Hill-street Council, and by that means to with- 
draw suspicion from himself. 

It would be useless here to enlarge in refutation of the claims of Mr. 



JUNIUS AND LOUD TOWNSHEND. 39 

Ireland after eleven adjournments.'" The author professes to give a 
report of a meeting in Hill-street, convened for the purpose of 
drawing up Lord Townshend's instructions for the government of 
Ireland. This was a subject that could not fail to attract the 
attention of Lord Chesterfield, and though he might not have 
been consulted by the parties, yet his lordship's friends would 
naturally communicate to him the circumstances of Lord Town- 
shend's embarrassment. 

Notwithstanding the levity of the writer's description of the 
characters included in this drama, the result of the conference 
cannot be regarded as a pure fiction, for in answer to a correspon- 
dent (who pretended to give a real account of what passed at the 
council) the writer, in the seriousness of truth, warned his opponent 
not to provoke the exposure of the actual conduct of the parties 
on that occasion.* 

"If facts asserted are notoriously false," says Junius, "the 
assertion of them can do no mischief; if notoriously true they are 
beyond the reach of his wit, if he had any to palliate, or of his 
modesty, which I think is upon a par with his wit, to deny. 

" Now, sir, if I were not afraid of distressing him too much, I 
would ask him whether Lord Townshend did not openly complain, 
only three days before his departure, that he could not by the 
warmest solicitations prevail on the ministry to agree upon any one 
system of instructions for him, that he was left entirely to himself, 
and that the ministry could not be persuaded to pay the smallest 
attention either to his situation or to that of the country he was 
sent to govern. Did he not say this without reserve to every man 
he met even in public court, and with all possible marks of resent- 
ment and disgust ? I would advise your second correspondent not 



Burke, since this speech is the only tangible proof in his favour. His character, 
connections, and political opinions differ widely from those of Junius ; more- 
over, he frequently and solemnly denied any knowledge of the letters. But 
Burke was personally acquainted with Lord Chesterfield, and this will, perhaps, 
account for the copy of the speech finding its way to Woodfall. 

* This threatening to give still greater annoyance to his adversaries 
" if provoked," is a practical illustration of one of the maxims of Lord 
Chesterfield : — 

" If you have the power to hurt, hint, that if provoked, you may pos- 
sibly have the will too." 

Hints of this kind occur in the correspondence of Junius with the Duke 
of Bedford, Lord Hillsborough, Mr. Weston, and almost every other character 
who dared to oppose that writer. 



40 JUNIUS AND LORD TOWNSHEND. 

to deny these known facts, for if lie does I will assuredly produce 
some proofs of them which will gall his patrons a little more than 
anything they have seen already. Let one of them only recollect 
what sort of conversation very lately passed between him and the 
Lord-Lieutenant, how he was pressed and how he evaded. But 
the facts, of which the public are already possessed, sufficiently 
speak for themselves, and the nation wants no further proof of 
the weakness, ignorance, irresolution, and spirit of discord which 
reign triumphant in this illustrious divan, who have dared to take 
upon them the conduct of an empire." — Vol. II, p. 497. 

The ostensible design of the letters against Lord Townshend 
was to expose the incapacity of the ministers, and more particu- 
larly with reference to their management of Ireland. At the same 
time the writer appears to have been prompted, by some recent 
injury, to abuse the several parties named in the drama. Lord 
Townshend (who seems to have been the principal object of the 
writer's spleen) visited Lord Chesterfield once after his appointment 
to the Lieutenancy of Ireland. The circumstance is thus noticed 
in a letter to the Bishop of Waterford, dated 10th Oct., 1766. — 
" You have a new Lord-Lieutenant, I have seen him once, and he 
seems resolved to do well. One thing I verily believe, that he 
will have no dirty work done nor the least corruption suffered." — 
Letters, Vol. III., p. 433. 

It must be borne in mind that this guarded encomium on Lord 
Townshend (in which his lordship's qualifications as a viceroy are 
not mentioned) was written before Lord Chesterfield had any 
cause to be displeased with the ministers. It also proves that 
Lord Townshend had seen Lord Chesterfield on the subject of his 
recent appointment, and may not Junius refer to this very inter- 
view in the concluding paragraph of the last letter ? 

The enmity of Junius towards Lord Townshend appears to 
have subsided with this letter, for, although Junius occasionally 
alluded to the mismanagement of Ireland, and at a later period 
betrayed his contempt for Lord Townshend, and promised that 
the history of his ridiculous administration should not be lost to 
the public, yet he seems to have studiously avoided the subject. 
It was a theme, perhaps, too hazardous for Junius to attempt, 
since he could scarcely have condemned the viceroyship of Towns- 
hend without reminding the public of the popular administration 

Lord Chesterfield, 



JUNIUS AND LOED TOWNSHEND. 41 

In the letter " To the Honourable Brigadier- General," Lord 
George Sackville received his full share of abuse. It has been 
shown that at that time Lord Chesterfield consorted with those 
who strove to injure Lord George Sackville' s reputation. Neither 
is there any proof that Lord Chesterfield ever professed such a 
regard for his lordship as would prevent him from saying, in 
1767 — 

" I believe the best thing I can do will be to consult with 
my Lord George Sackville. His character is known and respected 
in Ireland as much as it is here, and I know he loves to be sta- 
tioned in the rear* as well as myself." — Vol. II, p. 491. 

This, however, is the only instance in which the name of 
Lord George Sackville is referred to by Junius in his public 
letters; but soon after that writer had attracted attention, sus- 
picion rested on Lord George Sackville as the author. In 
July, 1769, Junius cautions Mr. Woodfall to be on his guard 
against Swinney (one of Woodfall's correspondents), " who had 
the impudence to go to Lord George Sackville, whom he had 
never spoken to, and ask him whether or no he was Junius." 

The fact that Junius continued to write for more than two 
years after this disclosure, is alone sufficient to prove that 
Swinney was mistaken in his conjecture ; for had Lord George 
Sackville been Junius, he might have been traced in his subse- 
quent correspondence either by Swinney or by Mr. Woodfall. 
The alarm betrayed by Junius, and the assertion that Swinney 
had never before spoken to Lord George Sackville, indicates, 
it is true, a personal acquaintance between Junius and his lord- 



* An anecdote is related of Lord George Sackville, that shews he could 
hear his character for bravery aspersed, with a calm forbearance which a 
coward can never assume. 

His lordship, after he had taken the title of Germaine, procured a living 
for a gentleman whom he had not the honour of knowing. For this civility 
the gentleman waited on Lord George to return him his thanks. His lordship 
being inclined to make his situation as easy as possible, acquainted him that 
since he had procured the living, a second of equal value was within his gift, 
and he begged to recommend it to him in preference to the other, which was 
unluckily situated close to a powder-mill. The young parson desiring to ex- 
press a sense of his gratitude, also to give his lordship a specimen of his wit, 
unfortunately answered that he was much obliged to his lordship, for he had as 
great an aversion to powder, as Lord George Sackville. 

His lordship, unruffled, replied with the highest courtesy — " In that par- 
ticular, sir, you may find, upon more mature deliberation, that common fame 
has deceived you," without even betraying to the flippant priest, that Lord 
George Germaine had been Lord George Sackville. 



42 JUNIUS AND LORD TOWNSHEND. 

ship ; and this will explain the mystery of the early and accurate 
information which Junius obtained of Swinney's impertinent visit, 
for Lord G. Sackville not being Junius would probably mention 
to his acquaintance so extraordinary an occurrence. 

In a pamphlet published in 1825, (attempting to prove 
that Lord Geo. Sackville was Junius), we find the author com- 
pelled to have recourse to Lord Chesterfield in order to account 
for the knowledge of certain anecdotes divulged by Junius 
relating to the Duke and Duchess of Bedford. 

The author of this pamphlet admits that Lord Chesterfield's 
abilities would have been " unquestionably equal to the task" of 
writing the letters of Junius, but among other objections, he 
states that Lord Chesterfield died a short time before Mr. Woodfall 
and Junius concluded their correspondence. It will be shown 
that Lord Chesterfield died at the very time that Woodfall was ex- 
pecting the fulfilment of the promise held out by Junius in his 
last letter, dated 19th Jan., 1773. 

" Junius must have been more than a common political enemy 
to the duke," says Mr. Coventry, "or he would not have taken 
such infinite pains to collect a catalogue of the various indignities 
that had been offered to him. He writes to his printer more 
than once to obtain for him the information when the duke was 
flogged by Humphry. Not satisfied with this, he relates anec- 
dotes of the duchess, which might easily have been obtained 
from Lord Chesterfield, with whom Lord George was on intimate 
terms. Another anecdote respecting the duke's chastisement 
evidently came from that quarter: "Mr. Heston Humphry, a 
country attorney, horsewhipped the duke with equal justice, 
severity, and perseverance on the course at Litchfield. Kigby 
and Lord Trentham were also cudgelled in a most exemplary 
manner. This gave rise to the following 'story. When the 
late King heard that Sir Edward Hawke had given the French 
a drubbing, his Majesty, who had never received that kind of 
chastisement, was pleased to ask Lord Chesterfield the mean- 
ing of the word. Sir, says Lord Chesterfield, the meaning of 

the word ■ but here comes the Duke of Bedford, who 

is better able to explain it to your Majesty than I am." 

This last anecdote was not published originally with the letter 
to the Duke of Bedford, but was added by Junius when he revised 



JUNIUS AND LOED TOWNSHEND. 43 

Woodfall's Edition of the letters in 1771. The danger of dis- 
covery had then in a great measure ceased, and Junius feeling 
assured of the absence of any positive proofs from his writings, 
seemed rather to court enquiry, by relating circumstances of a 
private nature, known but to few beyond the Duke's own family. 
" Let the friends of the Duke of Bedford observe that humble 
silence which becomes their situation. They should recollect that 
there are still some facts in store at which human nature would 
shudder. I shall be understood by those whom it concerns, when I 
say that these facts go farther than to the Duke." 

At the time this warning was written, there were not many 
persons better acquainted with the private and public history of 
the Duke of Bedford than Lord Chesterfield — none perhaps but 
himself could " privately threaten his Grace with such a storm as 
would make him tremble even in his grave." 

It is not necessary to enter minutely into the enquiry whether 
Lord George Sackville wrote the letters of Junius, since his lord- 
ship's official papers are sufficient certificates of his incapacity ; 
but the absurdity of the supposition has lately been fully confirmed 
in the review* of a work attempting to affix the authorship of 
Junius on Lord George Sackville. We shall, therefore, only add 
a few particulars relating to his lordship's political connections after 
the memorable event that is supposed to have induced him to write 
the letters of Junius. 

In 1759 Lord George Sackville was deprived of all his em- 
ployments by Geo. II., and his name struck out of the Council 
Book by the King's own hand. He was afterwards, at his own 
request, tried by court martial, found guilty of disobeying Prince 
Ferdinand's orders, and declared unfit to serve His Majesty in any 
military capacity whatever. 

Notwithstanding these disgraces, he was introduced the next 
year at court by Lord Bute, and would probably have enjoyed the 
favours of the young King, if the ministry had not compelled him 
to retire. 

That this was the will of the ministers and not of the King, is 
evident from what followed after Mr. Pitt and the Duke of New- 
castle had resigned. In 1765 Lord George was re-instated a 

* Vol. ii., p. 32. f Athgeneum, Feb. 10, 1844. 



44 JUNIUS AND LORD TOWNSHEDD. 

member of the Privy Council, and appointed one of the Vice- 
Treasurers of Ireland ; but the next year Lord Chatham's ministry 
was formed, and Lord George Sackville was excluded. It does 
not appear that in all these reverses Lord George had any cause to 
complain of the behaviour of the King towards him. His lord- 
ship, however, did not accept office again till 1775, and in the 
interim the letters of Junius were written. 

As Mr. Britton has included Mr. Dunning with Lord Shelburne 
and Colonel Barre, as joint proprietor in the works of Junius, 
it may be expected that some notice will be taken of the pre- 
tensions of that gentleman to the authorship of the letters. L 

" Of all the reputed authors of these celebrated addresses," 
says Mr. Woodfall's editor, " Dunning, Lord Ashburton, offers 
the largest aggregate of claim in his favour, and, but for a few 
facts which seem decisive against him, might fairly be admitted 
to have been the real Junius. 

" Dunning was Solicitor- General at the time these letters first 
appeared, and for more than a twelvemonth afterwards; and 
Junius himself has openly and solemnly affirmed / am no lawyer 
by profession, nor do I pretend to be more deeply read than 
every English gentleman should be in the laws of his country. 
Dunning was a man of high unblemished honour as well as of 
high independent principles ; it cannot, therefore, be supposed 
that he would have vilified the king while one of the king's confi- 
dential servants and councellors ; nor would he, as a barrister, have 
written to "Woodfall in the course of a confidential correspondence, 
— I am advised that no jury will find a billy — Preliminary Essay, 
p. 155. 

In addition to these circumstances, Junius frequently expressed 
his contempt for the profession. In a private letter to "Wilkes he 
shrunk from the imputation of belonging to a class of men whose 
general character he despised as much as he did the nation that so 
often felt the force of his satire. " Though I use the terms of art 
do not injure me so much as to suspect I am a lawyer, I had as 
lief be a Scotchman." 

The opinions of Lord Ashburton were also in some cases 
directly opposite to those of Junius, neither does there appear to 
be any proof that he had cause for personal resentment against 
those whom Junius from time to time singled out as victims to 



JUNIUS AND LORD TOWNSHEND. 45 

appease the wrath of his vengeance. A single instance of Mr. 
Dunning' s opposition to that writer will be sufficient to prove how 
ill-founded was this conjecture. 

Junius, in his letter to Lord Mansfield, condemns the conduct 
of Baron Smythe in the case of John Taylor, who had, in spite of 
the instructions of the judge, been found guilty of murder. 

" Your brother Smythe," says Junius, " brow beats a jury and 
forces them to alter their verdict by which they had found a Scotch 
Sergeant guilty of murder, — and though the Kennedies were con- 
victed of a most deliberate and atrocious murder they still had a 
claim to the royal mercy. They were saved by the chastity of 
their connections. They had a sister — yet it was not her beauty 
but the pliancy of her virtue that recommended her to the king. 
The holy author of our religion was seen in the company of sinners, 
but it was his gracious purpose to convert them from their sins. 
Another man, who in the ceremonies of our faith might give 
lessons to the great enemy of it upon different principles, keeps 
much the same company. He advertises for patients, collects all 
the diseases of the heart, and turns a royal palace into an hospital 
of incurables. A man of honour has no ticket of admission at 
St. James's. They receive him like a virgin at the Magdalen— 
Go thou and do likewise. — Vol. II., p. 440. 

Mr. Dunning, though a strong oppositionist, defended Mr. 
Baron Smythe's conduct in respect to the trial alluded to by Junius, 
in a speech spoken on a motion made by Mr. Sergeant Glynn, 
Dec. 6, 1770. Mr. Dunning observed, "It is not that the cha- 
racters of Judges are not traduced by groundless accusations and 
scandalous aspersions. These are grievances which every one sees 
and every one laments. Judge Smythe, for example, has to my 
knowledge been very injuriously treated. His conduct in trying 
the Scotch Sergeant at Guildford, for which he has been so much 
abused in print and now arraigned in parliament, was, in my 
opinion, very fair and honorable. I was consulted on the affair 
as an advocate, and I must say that I perfectly coincided with him 
in sentiment. Had I been in his place I must have fallen under 
the same odium, for my conscience would not have allowed me to 
use any other language but that of Baron Smythe." — Editor's note 
to WoodfalVs Edition, p. 440. 

The above parallel proves that Mr. Dunning could not have 



46 JUNIUS AND LORD TOWNSHEND. 

been the author of the letter to Lord Mansfield ; but the extract 
from Junius contains strong evidence that it was written by Lord 
Chesterfield. The impiety of the writer is discernible in the com- 
parison he has drawn between the life of the Saviour of mankind 
and the questionable decorum of St. James's. 

" It is matter of surprise," observes the editor of the pamphlet 
to a Brigadier- General, " that in so many letters Junius should not 
have written a sentence or a word^that has hitherto done more 
with respect to his identity than supply matter for conjecture and 
enquiry. Attempts at concealment had before been made, but 
never, perhaps, with such entire success. Some favourite topic or 
some ruling subject of the imagination developed in his letters — a 
peculiar phrase, nay, even an unusual or a colloquial expression 
would, it might be supposed, have led to the discovery of the 
author.*" — Intro. , p.B. 



* In answer to this objection we shall confine ourselves here to only four 
instances of peculiarity of expression rarely to be met with in any writer— 
certainly in none who have been suspected as Junius or the examples would have 
been quoted for their singularity. These expressions are " whiffling," " to 
whittle," " Intendment," " Hospital of Incurables." 

Two out of the four of these are selected from the posthumous works of 
Lord Chesterfield. 

Junius. 

"Will any officer of rank condescend to receive orders from a little 
whiffling broker to whom he may formerly, perhaps, have given half-a-crown 
for negociating an hundred pound stock or sixpence for a lottery ticket." — 
Vol. III., p. 427. 

" For shame, my Lord Barrington, send this whiffling broker back to 
the mystery he was bred in. — lb. p. 444. 

2. — " I am so clearly satisfied that Lord Mansfield has done an act not 
warranted by law, and that the enclosed argument is not to be answered 
(besides that I find lawyers concur with me) that I am inclined to expect he 
may himself acknowledge it as an oversight and endeavour to whittle it 
away to nothing."— Private Letter to Lord Chatham. Corres., Vol. lV. t 
p. 192. 

3. — "Whether according to the true meaning and Intendment of the laws 
of England relative to bail, &c." — lb. 

" If there be a judge or lawyer of any note in Westminster Hall who shall 
be daring enough to affirm that according to the true Intendment of the laws 
of England, &c."— Vol. JL, p. 442. 

4. — " He advertises for patients, collects all the diseases of the heart, and 
turns a royal palace into an Hospital of Incurables." — Vol. H„ p. 439. 

Chesterfield. 

1. — "A constant smirk upon the face and a whiffling activity of the 
body are strong indications of futility." — Letter to his Son, Aug. 10, 1749. 

2. — " I can tell you in general that the Dutch have not whittled down 
their engagements in this as they have constantly done in all former acts of 
accession," &c. — Unpublished Letter to Benj. Keene, Feb. 22nd, 1732. 

3. — " Yet I must acknowledge them to be the properest authors to answer 
the true meaning and intendment of the bill. — Works, Vol. II., p. 103. 



JUNIUS AND LORD TOWNSHEND. 47 

As far as regards the majority of persons suspected, these 
observations may be said strictly to apply ; and even where a re- 
semblance in style and mode of expression has been traced, the 
evidence is still inconclusive, because the comparisons are selected 
from publications written either at a later date than the letters, or 
after their style had become fashionable among political writers. 
If it were worth while to take up the time of the reader with 
evidence of this nature, when more important proofs are in reserve, 
a volume of quotations might be selected from the writings of Lord 
Chesterfield, much stronger in testimony of the authorship of the 
letters than the whole mass of comparisons that have, from time to 
time, been adduced in favour of the pretensions of the various can- 
didates ; but such evidence will never convince the public unless 

BORNE OUT BY AN UNBROKEN SERIES OE EACTS AND CIRCUM- 
STANCES THAT WILL APPLY TO NO OTHER PERSON THAN HIM 
WHO SHALL BE CHARGED WITH HAVING WRITTEN THE LETTERS, 

Commentators on Junius (and more particularly those who 
fancy that they have discovered the author) in general take only a 
partial view of the character of that writer. Like sectarians in 
religion they select a few passages which seem to favour their 
opinions, and reject, as spurious or doubtful, those texts and 
doctrines which, if dispassionately examined, would prove fatal 
to each particular claim. The uniform practice of resorting to 
this unfair mode of enquiry has induced many to doubt the 
authenticity of the early letters in the miscellaneous collection, 
because many of these have been found irreconcileable with the 
character and connections of nearly every one who has been sus- 
pected. These doubts have lately been almost confirmed by the 
publication of two private letters from Junius to Lord Chatham, 
found among his lordship's papers after his death. That both 
these letters were written by Junius can scarcely be doubted from 



" Though the colour be deficient the guilt is the same in the intendment 
of the law." — lb. p. 249. 

4. — " This club of worthy gentlemen might be not improperly called an 
Hospital of Incurables," &c. — lb. p. 212. 

" To withdraw in the fullness of his power and the utmost gratification of 
his ambition from the House of Commons (which procured him his power and 
which could alone ensure it to him) and go into that Hospital of Incura- 
bles, the House of Lords, is a measure so unaccountable that nothing but 
proof positive could make me believe it : but true it is. — Letter to his Son, 
Aug. 1, 1766. 



48 JUNIUS AND LORD TOWNSHEND. 

the exact resemblance of the autographs as portrayed in the fac 
similes given in the Chatham Correspondence. That Junius could 
have written such flattering letters, and at the same time have 
held up Lord Chatham as an object of detestation and contempt 
appears altogether incredible. There was but one man, perhaps, 
at that time (possessing the talents and opportunities of Junius) 
who would have ventured to perpetrate so vile an artifice, or 
who had dissimulation enough to write the first private letter 
to Lord Chatham, and that man we are prepared to prove, as far 
as circumstances can prove anything, was Lord Chesterfield. 

In prosecuting this charge against his lordship, it is not the 
intention of the writer to pass over any of the miscellaneous letters 
contained in the edition of 1814. To neglect any one of these 
contributions to the Public Advertiser would be to break the chain 
of evidence that connects these writings with Lord Chesterfield, 
and would render incomplete the development of the motives and 
causes which impelled the author to proceed in his labours, under 
his well known signature of Junius. 



IKFlRMiTiES OF LORD CHESTERFIELD. 49 



CHAPTER II. 



Lord Chesterfield is said to have retained his memory (which is 
mentioned as surprising for its excellence) and his presence of 
mind to his latest breath. — Lord Mahon. 



Before we proceed with the evidence that is to prove Lord 
Chesterfield was the writer of the Letters of Junius, the public 
may reasonably expect that two very important objections should 
be answered. 

It has been said that " considering his lordship's advanced age 
and bodily infirmities" and that " uninfluenced by any personal 
animosity for engaging in the task, such a supposition must be 
groundless." 

We shall for the present confine ourselves to the first and most 
important of these objections, because, if it were true that Lord 
Chesterfield's "age" or "infirmity" at the time that the letters 
were written was such as to present to all appearance a physical 
impossibility — depriving his lordship of the power of writing the 
letters of Junius, then any motives brought forward, however strong 
they might be, would fail to convince, and this inquiry would meet 
the fate of others which have occasionally attracted the attention, 
without having satisfied the curiosity, of the public. 

The great age of Lord Chesterfield, it must be confessed, does 
at first sight present a formidable objection to the supposition that 
he was employed in writing the letters of Junius, and his bodily 
infirmities add great weight to a difficulty apparently so insur- 
mountable. The energetic epistles of Junius have so long been 
regarded as the productions of a vigorous mind, of one ardent in 
the pursuit of political power, and associated with others both in 
the composition of the letters and in the contrivances to elude 
detection, that nothing but the strongest circumstances will remove 



50 INFIRMITIES OF LORD CHESTERFIELD. 

the prejudice and convince the public that Lord Chesterfield was 
the author. 

The first period during which it may be said that Lord Ches- 
terfield was incapable of supporting the character of Junius was 
in the summer of 1767, when his lordship was so ill that fears 
were entertained of his recovery. 

Lady Hervey notices this alarming illness in a letter to Mr. 
Morris, dated 6th September, 1767, and expresses her uneasiness 
as to the result, and although Mr. Hawkins assured her that 
Lord Chesterfield had] no " distemper" but weakness, (the conse- 
quence of his late malady), yet Lady Hervey declared she was not 
satisfied with the account she heard of him. 

The writer does not here intend to insinuate that Lord 
Chesterfield was not seriously ill in the summer of 1767, for the 
event is corroborated by the chasm in Junius's correspondence 
during the greater part of the months of July* and August, but 
it is very doubtful whether Lord Chesterfield suffered such extreme 
debility in September as is represented by Lady Hervey in her 
letter of that date : for if Lord Chesterfield wrote the first three 
letters of Junius in April, May, and June, 1767, and contem- 
plated renewing his correspondence with Woodfall as soon as his 
health would permit, he was too able a politician not to encourage 
a report so favourable to his security, and which could scarcely 
fail to avert suspicion by the apparent impossibility of his being 
occupied in such pursuits. 

From the 24th June to the 16th September, 1767, only one 
letter has been traced to Junius, dated 25th August, in which the 
writer apologizes to Woodfall for his silence by saying that " he 
had been for some time in the country or he would have heard 
sooner from him." In October Lord Chesterfield had rallied and 
we find three letters in that month from Junius. In November 
Lord Chesterfield went to Bath and no letter from Junius appeared; 
but in December, while his lordship was at Bath three letters were 
published. The first, a bond fide speech of Mr. Burke's, sent by 



* On the 9th July, 1767, Lord Chesterfield flattered himself that he had 
escaped the prevailing epidemic then raging in London, called by the genteel 
name of " Vinfiuenza." It was between the date of that letter and the 6th 
September that Lord Chesterfield was seized with the malady that deprived 
him of the use of his lower extremities. 



INFIRMITIES OP LORD CHESTERFIELD. 51 

Junius for insertion in the Public Advertiser. The second a com- 
munication without any signature which has little to authenticate 
it, except its having been acknowledged by Woodfall as' coming 
from his correspondent C; and the third a short note under 
the signature Downright, in which the writer accuses Lord 
Chatham of being the cause of the great increase in the national 
debt. There is nothing in these three communications which 
would prevent Lord Chesterfield sending them from Bath by a safe 
hand for insertion in the Public Advertiser. They required no 
other answer but such as Woodfall could convey in his notices to 
his correspondents.* 

It has never, perhaps, occurred to many that the very cir- 
cumstances which seemed to preclude the possibility of Lord 
Chesterfield being Junius were his chief protection, and that, like 
the Roman patriot whose name he adopted, his lordship feigned 
an imbecility the better to conceal his purpose. We must not, 
therefore, be surprised that Lord Chesterfield should complain 
to his friend the Bishop of Waterford that his understanding 
" tottered" and that his memory " fumbled." But from others we 
have no such record of his mental decay; on the contrary, we 
learn that he retained his wit and \ivacity to the last, and that 
even the pain and suffering which he endured at the close of life 
(March, 1773) could not overcome the serenity of his mind.f 

His plea of ignorance of political events and of the intrigues of 
parties is also no better to be relied on — for (supposing him to 
have been Junius), he would be compelled to assume the sem- 
blance of ignorance or indifference in order to avert suspicion, and, 



* On the subject of the first of these communications (Burke's speech) 
Woodfall twice resorted to that means of communicating with the writer, and 
by his respectful language he shewed even at that early date how much he felt 
honoured by the contributions of " his friend and correspondent C" : — 

" C's favour is come to hand, and we think our paper much honoured by 
his correspondence. He may be assured we shall take every possible means 
to deserve a continuance of it." 

And the next day he made an apology for its non-appearance : — 

" We most heartily wish to oblige our valuable correspondent C, but his 
last favour is of so delicate a nature that we dare not insert it, unless we are 
permitted to make such changes in certain expressions as may take off the 
immediate offence without hurting the meaning." 

f The editor of the Suffolk Correspondence observes " that the collection 
begins and ends with Lord Chesterfield: — his letters are marked with his 
characteristic elegance and wit, and his last letter is as gay as his first written 
55 years before."— Vol. I., p. 32. 

E 2 



52 INFIRMITIES OF LORD CHESTERFIELD. 

in some instances perhaps, to escape detection. On these occa- 
sions a letter to the Bishop of Waterford, written in a trembling 
hand and indicative of a feeble mind, would (if opened at the 
post office) be considered as sufficient evidence of Lord Chester- 
field's deplorable condition. In one of these letters, dated 12th 
August, 1771, his lordship describes, in mournful accents, his 
rapid decline " towards second childhood and mere oblivion." 

" I am most prodigiously old," writes his lordship, " and every 
month of the calendar adds at least a year to my age. My hand 
trembles to that degree that I can hardly hold my pen. My under- 
standing stutters, and my memory fumbles." 

And in a note to a subsequent letter we are told by the editor 
that the autograph was so feebly written as to require another hand 
to be passed over the trembling outline to make it legible.* 

Notwithstanding these acknowledged indications of his ap- 
proaching demise, his lordship neglected to make his will — a 
circumstance so extraordinary that it has not escaped animadver- 
sion. That important document was not prepared till Junius had 
published his last letter, entitled Memoirs of Lord Barrington. 
His lordship's will is dated 4th June, 1772, and is written on seven 
sheets of parchment, comprising a codicil dated 11th February, 
1773. Each sheet bears the signature " Chesterfield," written 
in a firm, and (notwithstanding its characteristic elegance) a bold 
hand. 

Strange ! that in 1771 Lord Chesterfield's hand should tremble 
to that degree that he could scarcely hold his pen ; yet in 1772 and 
1773 he should be able to subscribe his name to parchment in a 
style that would have been creditable to his proficiency in penman- 
ship at the age of forty-five ! We shall leave the reader to form 
his comments on this extraordinary circumstance, and pass on to 
the next fact connected with the age and infirmities of Lord Ches^ 
terfield. 

On the 16th March, 1769, Lord Chesterfield apologizes to Mrs; 
Eugenia Stanhope for being obliged to use another hand to acknow- 



* Surely it would have been less trouble if his lordship's secretary had 
made a fair copy of the letter, and obtained to it his lordship's signature. The 
stratagem in this instance seems to have been carried too far, and may justly 
excite suspicion as to the accuracy of the deponent's account of his wretched 
Condition. 



INFIRMITIES OF LORB CHESTERFIELD.' 53 

ledge the receipt of her letter of the 27th February, and in a letter 
to Alderman Faulkner, of the 25th of the same month, he says, 
" A violent inflammation in my eyes, which is not yet quite re- 
moved, hindered me from acknowledging your last letter." 

So far, therefore, as relates to the early part of March, 1769, 
Lord Chesterfield seems to have been in such a condition as to 
render him totally unfit to carry on the correspondence as Junius 
in the Public Advertiser. 

Now let us inquire what happened to Junius at this precise 
period, and see how far his situation corresponded with that of Lord 
Chesterfield. 

Early in April, 1769, in consequence of the temporary cessation 
of Junius's letters, "A monody" was published on the supposed 
death of Junius, whom the poet imagines had fallen 

" Midst arrows dipp'd in ministerial gold." 

Junius felt it necessary to notice this calumny, and sent the 
following note to the printer of the Public Advertiser, dated 12th 
April, 1769. 

"Mr. Woodfall, — The monody on the supposed death of 
Junius is not the less poetical for being founded in fiction. In 
some parts of it there is a promise of genius which deserves to be 
encouraged. My letter on Monday will, I hope, convince the 
author that I am neither a partisan of Mr. Wilkes, nor yet bought 
off by the Ministry. It is true I have refused offers which a more 
prudent or a more interested man would have accepted. Whether 
it be simplicity or virtue in me, I can only affirm / am in earnest, 
because I am convinced, as far as my understanding is capable of 
judging, that the present Ministry are driving this country to 
destruction, and you, I think, may be satisfied that my rank and 
fortune place me above a common bribe. — Junius." 

After the publication of this letter Junius resumed his pen, but, 
if we are to credit Lord Chesterfield, " the inflammation in his 
eyes" still prevented him from answering his correspondent's 
letters. " The only reason," writes Lord Chesterfield, on the 9th 
July, 1769, "that I had for not writing sooner was that I could 
not, which I dare say you will allow to be a sufficient one. I have 
for the last three months had an inflammation in my eyes, which 
hindered me from either writing or reading, and this is almost the 



54 INFIRMITIES OF LORD CHESTERFIELD. 

first, as well as the most pleasing service which they have done 
me." 

Here is a prevarication, or, to speak in gentler terms, an inac- 
curacy as to the duration of his lordship's affliction. His first 
apology was on the 12th March, and on the 25th he was nearly 
recovered, but on the 9th July it appears he had had a relapse, and 
had been deprived of the power of reading and writing for the last 
three months. People suffering under such visitations are apt to 
keep a better reckoning. 

But it may be well to examine whether Junius was quite at his 
ease at the date of Lord Chesterfield's last letter, 9th July, 1769. 

On the 15th July, 1769, Junius wrote to Woodfall requesting 
him to say candidly whether he knew or suspected who he was ? 
and at the same time instructed him to address his answer to Mr. 
William Middleton, to be left at the bar of the New Exchange 
Coffee House, and on the 21st July he cautions "Woodfall to take 
care of Swinney who had " had the impudence to go to Lord 
George Sackville to ask him whether or no he was Junius," also to 
change the address to Mr. John Fretley at the same coffee house, 
where it was absolutely impossible that he should be known. 

These references to the private letters of Junius distinctly con- 
nect that writer's fears of discovery with Lord Chesterfield's return 
of the painful inflammation in his eyes which he took care to com- 
municate to the Bishop of Waterford only a few days before Junius 
so anxiously inquired of Woodfall whether he knew or suspected 
who he was ! 

But the sympathy that seemed to exist between the fears of 
Junius and the infirmities of Lord Chesterfield did not end here. 
It is recorded by Horace Walpole that about this time Junius wrote 
privately to Mr. George Grenville, desiring him to desist from 
making further inquiries, and that at a proper time he would reveal 
himself. The knowledge of this circumstance is said to have been 
obtained from Sir John Irwine, who was on a visit at Wootton (the 
seat of Mr. G. Grenville) when the letter from Junius arrived. 
But another letter was sent to Wootton at that time written by Lord 
Chesterfield to Sir John Irwine, (and if we are correct in our opinion 
that both letters were from the same hand) this was a masterpiece 
of dissimulation which few but so bold a politician as Lord Ches- 
terfield would have had the courage to put in practice. The design 



INFIRMITIES OF LORD CHESTERFIELD. 55 

of this letter seems to have been to convince the party at Wootton 
that their friend, Lord Chesterfield, could not be the author of Ju- 
nius. The letter is dated 6th August, 1769. After touching 
slightly on the factious and seditious spirit of the times (without 
referring to Junius* who was then in the zeni,th of his popularity) 
which his lordship says shocked all sober thinking people, he breaks 
off with great seeming indifference. " But enough of politics, 
which from long disuse and seeing them at present only remotely 
and through a mist, I must necessarily talk absurdly about," Then 
follows the account of his own health which (as in similar cases 
when Junius was hard run) is deplorable enough. 

" As to my own decayed carcass which you so kindly inquire 
after, I can only tell you that it crumbles away daily. My eyes are 
still so bad that they are of little use to a deaf man who lived by 
reading alone. Many other physical ills crowd upon me, and I 
have drained Pandora's box without finding hope at the bottom. 
The taxes that nature lays upon old age are very heavy, and I 
would rather that death would distrain at once than groan long 
under the burthen." 

It was at this critical conjuncture that Junius publicly declared 
that he had not the honour of being personally known to Mr. 
George Grenville. " A truly singular assertion," observes the edi- 
tor of the letters, " when taken in connection with the fact that Mr. 
Grenville of all the political characters of the day appears to have 
been our author's favourite. He voluntarily omits every opportu- 
nity of censuring him, and readily embraces every occasion of de- 
fending and extolling his conduct and principles." 

If the editor had compared the private letters of Junius at this 
time with the date of the letter in the Public Advertiser, wherein 
this singular assertion was introduced, he would have seen the mo- 
tive of the writer in thus disclaiming a personal acquaintance with 
Mr. Grenville. Lord Chesterfield's letter to Sir John Irwine was 
sent to Wootton eight days after the public declaration from Junius 
that Mr. Grenville was personally unknown to him, and these two 
circumstances probably diverted for awhile the suspicions of the 
Grenville party from Lord Chesterfield. 



* It is remarkable that Lord Chesterfield never mentioned Junius in any of 
his letters, although he did not think Wilkes below his notice. 



56 INFIRMITIES OF LORD CHESTERFIELD. 

It is not pretended that there is no foundation in truth in the 
excuse which Lord Chesterfield made to his correspondents in 
March, 1769, for the incapacity of Lord Chesterfield is borne out 
by the fact that Junius had disappeared, and his absence had 
given rise to the monody on his supposed death, but that Lord 
Chesterfield should be just recovering from a relapse, at the very 
time that Junius was alarmed by the inquiries of Swinney and the 
still more dangerous surmises of his friends at Wootton is some- 
thing more than suspicious. It will also occur to the reader, 
that if Lord Chesterfield was engaged in writing the letters of Ju- 
nius, some excuse must be invented to account for his remissness in 
his private correspondence, and this plea of blindness, founded in 
fact in the first instance (brought on probably by his lengthened 
correspondence with Sir W. Draper, in February), was afterwards 
resorted to for the purpose of keeping his acquaintance in the dark 
as to the nature of his pursuits, and at the same time furnished a 
plausible excuse for the almost total seclusion in which Lord Ches- 
terfield passed that part of his life in which the letters of Junius 
were written. 

So far we have endeavoured to shew what reliance is to be 
placed on Lord Chesterfield's melancholy description of his infirmi- 
ties at the time that Junius was publishing his letters. We shall 
now inquire whether his lordship's testimony against himself is 
borne out, either by his writings, or by the evidence of his con- 
temporaries, and whether the wretched account of his " decayed 
carcass," and his " candid confession" of the corresponding decline 
in his mental faculties have not, to serve a particular purpose, been 
greatly exaggerated. 

After Lord Chesterfield's recovery in 1767, we find that he 
gave his friends a more cheerful account of the general state of his 
health, than he had been in the habit of doing for some years. " I 
have a good appetite, a good digestion, and good sleep. You will 
perhaps ask me what more I would have. I answer that I would 
have a great deal more if I could. I would have the free use of 
my legs and all my members, but this I know is past praying 
for." Letter to Dr. Monsey, December, 1767. 

This may be considered a fair statement of Lord Chesterfield's 
bodily health, during the period that Junius's letters were in the 
course of publication. It was only occasionally and under peculiar 



INFIRMITIES OP LORD CHESTERFIELD. 57 

circumstances, that his lordship complained of the sad inroads, 
which time had made in the powers of his mind and body. 

In November, 1766, (only a few months before the first letter 
of Junius was published), Horace Walpole (writing in the character 
of Lady Suffolk's maid) thus chides his lordship for complaining 
that he was growing old. 

" She says and so says Mister Rusil our butler that your lord 
may be ashamed of himself, so he may, to say that he grows old 
for he niver was spittlier in his born days." 

His Lordship's sprightly answer to this humorous epistle shews 
that neither his wit nor his vivacity justified the querulous tone, 
which from long habit he so frequently assumed in his familiar 
letters. 

But to come to more serious evidence of Lord Chesterfield's 
ability, to write at a very advanced age, we find on referring to 
the recent edition of his letters that " the account of Lord Bute's 
administration," was written in 1764, when Lord Chesterfield was 
in his seventieth year, and that the best written and most valuable 
of his admonitory essays was not undertaken till after Junius had 
closed his correspondence with Woodfall; for in that admirable 
" Advice" Lord Chesterfield alludes to the provision he had made 
in his will in favour of his godson on his return to England.* 1 Lord 
Chesterfield's will, it will be remembered, was not signed till the 
4th June, 1772. 

We have in addition to this unquestionable proof of the powers 
of Lord Chesterfield's mind, the unanimous testimony of his lord- 
ship's contemporaries, who affirm that his mental faculties remained 
unimpaired " to his latest breath." Even his memory and presence 
of mind, that in others are so apt to give such unwelcome indica- 
tions of approaching age were true to him to the last. 

But it has been asserted that Junius was in full possession of 
his bodily, as well as his mental faculties, when the letters were 
written. How this can be proved till the author has been dis- 
covered is difficult to imagine, for Junius has given a different pic- 
ture of himself. " Alas ! his age and figure would do but little 



* Mr. A. Stanhope was sent by Lord Chesterfield to Leipsic, in 1768, 
under the care of Mr. D'Eyverdun, an ex-clerk, who had recently been 
dismissed from the Secretary of State's Office, but who, it appears, had found 
favour in the sight of Lord Chesterfield. 



58 INFIRMITIES OF LORD CHESTERFIELD. 

credit to his partner," and "In truth he saw no connection between 
Junius and a minuet." 

Although this may be said to be only a plausible evasion 
intended to mislead his correspondent, there are still many in- 
advertent expressions in the letters of Junius, which will not admit 
of such interpretation. 

He seldom addresses a correspondent that he does not bid them 
farewell or take leave of them for ever. 

" I want rest most severely,^ and am going to take it in the 
country for a few days." 

" Yet after I had blinded myself with poring over journals, 

debates, and parliamentary history " 

" Do not think that I solicit new employment. I am overcome 
with the slavery of writing." 

Home Tooke (presuming that Junius was in full possession of 
health and spirits) ridiculed the importance, which that writer 
attached to his labours. 

"I congratulate you, sir, on 'the recovery of your wonted style, 
though it has cost you a fortnight. I compassionate your labour 
in the composition of your letters." 

In a letter to Mr. Wilkes, dated 7th September, 1771, Junius, 
speaking of annual parliaments, says, " Whenever the question 
shall be seriously agitated, I will endeavour (and if I live will 
assuredly attempt it) to convince the English nation by argu- 
ments," &c. 

And in his Dedication he makes use of the same expression, 
but under still more remarkable circumstances, for he refers to 
the approaching dissolution of Parliament, which must necessarily 
take place within two years ; yet Junius doubts whether he shall 
live to witness that event. 

"You are roused at last to a sense of your danger. The 
remedy will soon be in your power. If Junius lives you shall 
often be reminded of it." 

In the early letters of Junius, before there can be supposed 
to be any reason for concealing his age, he treats the Duke of 
Grafton (who was then in his 34th year) as "a mere boy, 
notwithstanding the down upon his chin," and bids him culti- 
vate the company of women of experience. 

This contempt for men in the prime of life savours strongly of 



INFIRMITIES OF LORD CHESTERFIELD. 59 

the overbearing presumption of an octogenarian who will allow 
none to have experience but those who have passed the age of 
profiting by it. 

" After long experience of the world," says Junius, " I never 
knew a rogue who was not unhappy," and in confirmation of 
this boast of long experience, the writer declared that he remem- 
bered the great Walpolean battles. 

And well, indeed, might Junius remember them, for in his 
letters under that signature he did little more than 

" Fight these battles o'er again." 

The names of some of the performers were changed, but the 
fable was the same. 

Were we not fearful of offending the enthusiastic admirers 
of Junius, we should be tempted to show that if the spirit 
imparted to his writings by their malevolence were taken away, 
they would, in many instances, present strong indications of 
senility. The constant repetition of the same idea — the frequent 
recurrence to the same subject, and the impotent threats held 
out against his adversaries, clearly demonstrate that the writer 
was not in the possession of the full and vigorous exercise of 
his understanding, although his wit, memory, and presence of 
mind were unimpaired. We know that we are upon tender 
ground, but we are supported in this opinion by the shrewd 
observations of the contemporaries of Junius. 

We cannot conclude these observations without taking some 
notice of the manual labour which the letters of Junius imposed 
upon their author. 

Although we are inclined to believe that the autographs pre- 
served by Woodfall are in the handwriting of Junius, it is not 
to be inferred that the writer received no assistance in his labours, 
for he has admitted the fact that some person was employed in 
obtaining his letters and parcels from Woodfall. The person thus 
entrusted must have had the entire confidence of Junius, and we 
may safely assert that no person would be so likely to discharge 
this high trust faithfully (assuming Chesterfield was the author) 
as Mr. Dayrolles, who was at the time that Junius was writing his 
letters, almost the constant companion of Lord Chesterfield. 
The same confidential friend might also have been employed in 



60 INFIRMITIES OF LORD CHESTERFIELD. 

transcribing the manuscripts for publication. This, at least, was a 
part of the labours in the performance of which Lord Chesterfield 
could place the utmost reliance on the skill of Mr. Dayrolles. 

In the spring of 1748 Lord Chesterfield received certain letters 
from an unknown correspondent at the Hague, signed Van-der 
Poll. Anxious to keep up the correspondence, his lordship wrote 
to Mr. Dayrolles on the subject. " If you should by accident know 
or hear of a Van-der Poll, pray let the person know that I am 
very much obliged to him for his correspondence, which is very 
instructive, and that I beg he will continue it. I do not know 
who he is, and if you should, do not send me his name in a letter 
by post, for I know that most letters from and to me are opened." 

The editor of the last edition of Lord Chesterfield's letters has 
revealed the secret of this mysterious letter writer, who, it appears, 
was no other than Mr. Dayrolles himself. 

"It appears from Mr. Dayrolles's MSS," says Lord Mahon, 
" that the letters signed Van-der Poll, in a disguised hand, and in the 
French language were in reality from Mr. Dayrolles himself, as a 
secure channel of communication. A private letter in his own 
name, dated August 25, 1748, and sent over by Sir Matthew 
Decker, further shows that till that period Lord Chesterfield him- 
self was not aware who Van-der Poll really was." 

If Mr. Dayrolles could thus elude the keen penetration of Lord 
Chesterfield, with whom he was at that time in constant corres- 
pondence, the similarity of handwriting must lose much of the 
importance usually attached to it by persons anxious to prove the 
authorship of Junius. The truth is, that none of the fac-similes 
that have been brought into comparison with the autographs of 
Junius bear much resemblance. The handwriting of Junius is evi- 
dently greatly disguised, but it is more remarkable for its elegance 
and precision than for any peculiar form, either in the character 
of the letters, or the eccentricity of its general appearance. There 
is very little difference discernible between the fac-simile in the 
Chatham correspondence dated 2d January 1768, and the 
last letter which Woodfall received on the 19th Januury, 1773, 
though some have discovered a tremulous appearance in the latter, 
indicating the approaches of age. The initial C used in the pri- 
vate correspondence, is precisely that of Lord Chesterfield; and 
here it may be well to observe, that Junius, as an old correspondent 



INFIRMITIES OF LORD CHESTERFIELD. 61 

of Woodfall* could not change his initial without creating suspi- 
cion, unless he had employed another hand to copy both his public 
and private letters, and even then his style might have betrayed 
him. 

Too much stress, however, seems to have been laid upon this 
and another point in the discovery of the anonymous writer. A 
resemblance in handwriting and in style are, indeed, both material 
as auxiliary tests, but it is far more important to trace the mind of 
the writer in his prevailing modes of thinking, and in his inad- 
vertent use of words and phrases as unconnected with the style of 
the author. For the autographs might not have been the hand- 
writing of Junius, and the popular character of the style is chiefly 
attributable to the vindictive feeling which first gave birth to what 
the writer himself has emphatically called " The style of Junius. "f 

If Junius had been the sole depository of his own secret, and 
the gentleman who transacted the conveyancing part was put forth 
only as a blind to deceive the printer, how is the circumstance to 
be explained that at certain times it was impossible for Junius to 
obtain his letters from the coffee houses? The usual means of 
getting possession of these parcels was to send a porter to the 
coffee house while Junius or his friend waited at a convenient dis- 
tance till the porter returned, and in doing this the author himself 
would run no more risk of discovery than by entrusting a confi- 
dential friend with so important a commission. We are, therefore, 
led to infer that it was not so much the rank and notoriety as the 
age and infirmity of Junius that occasioned the difficulties so fre- 

* There is reason to believe that Lord Chesterfield was a contributor to 
the Public Advertiser long before the date of the earliest letter hitherto traced 
to Junius* and that the anecdotes published at that time of Lord Chatham's 
" fall up stairs'* and] Charles Townshend's "pain in his side" were from the 
pen of Lord Chesterfield : — 

" I do not know" (writes his lordship in 1765) "whether you have the 
Daily Advertiser and the Public Advertiser in which all the political letters are 
inserted and some very well written ones on both sides, but I know that they 
amuse me tant bien que mal for an hour or two every morning." 

The interest which Lord Chesterfield here acknowledged he felt in the 
political disputes of 1765, is indicative of that cacoethes scribendi which so pro- 
minently distinguished his lordship throughout his political career. Nor k it 
too much to presume that Lord Chesterfield would make choice of one of the 
above named papers should circumstances ever induce him again to enter the 
lists as a political writer. 

f The first letter that may properly be considered as written in the " style 
of Junius," is to the Duke of Grafton, April 23, 1768. This letter is also re- 
markable as being the first personal address from the pen of Junius. 



62 INFIRMITIES OF LORD CHESTERFIELD. 

quently adverted to in his letters to Woodfall. The absence of his 
friend at times would cause this interruption in his correspondence 
with his printer, for in the case of a letter or parcel being deposited 
at the coffee house by Woodfall, it required the personal interfer- 
ence of Junius or his friend to obtain it. 

There is one circumstance at the close of Junius's correspond- 
ence with his printer that seems to apply to the intimacy which at 
that time subsisted between Lord Chesterfield and Mr. Dayrolles, 
but as this involves an incident connected with the publication 
of the genuine edition of the letters, we must go back as far as the 
year 1771. 

On the 17th December Junius gave directions to Woodfall to 
prepare three copies of his edition of the letters, one of which was 
to be bound in vellum, and lettered Junius 1-2, as handsomely as 
possible, the edges gilt. In his next letter he informs Woodfall 
that he has a long paper ready for publication, and he asks Wood- 
fall whether he can have two proofs struck off without any one 
knowing what was going forward except the composer, as the letter 
was not to appear till the morning of the meeting of Parliament. 
On the publication of the Chatham correspondence (1838) it was 
discovered that one of these proofs had been forwarded with a 
letter from Junius to Lord Chatham ; but it seems that Lord Chat- 
ham thought proper to take no notice of this communication, for 
the proof was found among his lordship's papers. There can be 
very little doubt, therefore, that the vellum bound books were in- 
tended for Lord Chatham, but as his lordship had disregarded 
Junius's application, it is probable that the author took no further 
trouble about that copy of his works. For in his letter of the 5th 
March, 1772, he says, "If the vellum books are not yet bound I 
would wait for the index ; if they are, let me know by a line in the 
P. A. When they are ready they may be safely left in the same 
place as last night." But in his next letter, two months later, he 
writes, " I am in no manner of hurry about the books ;" and the 
following day he desired Woodfall to recall the communication left 
at the accustomed place : — " At present it would be difficult for 
me to receive it. When the books are ready a Latin verse will be 
sufficient." After this we hear no more of any parcels having 
been received by Junius from Woodfall. It is not improbable, 
therefore, that the vellum bound books remained in the hands of 



ItfipnuttttES OF IiORD CHESTEEEIEED. 63 

Woodfall, and that the circumstance of their having been thus 
bound at the express desire of Junius induced the printer to keep 
them as a pattern, and this will account for similar copies having 
been found in the libraries of so many persons, which from time to 
time has occasioned so much speculation. 

It was about the time that Junius felt so much difficulty in ob- 
taining his parcels from Woodfall that, it is presumed, Mr. Day- 
rolles left Lord Chesterfield, for, in September, 1772, Lord Ches- 
terfield wrote to his friend that, for the last four months, he had 
been labouring under a diarrhoea, which Dr. Warren had not been 
able to cure. This will account for the abrupt termination of the 
writer's correspondence with Lord Barrington, to whom Junius 
had promised to address sixteen letters that were then ready for 
publication. 

We have dwelt longer on this subject, perhaps, than may be 
thought necessary, but as Lord Chesterfield's advanced age, and 
consequent infirmities, constitute the only objection that can be 
raised to his pretensions to the authorship of Junius, it may be 
considered highly important to remove this prima facie impediment, 
that the reader may be induced to examine more attentively the 
facts that are to prove that he alone was qualified in every other 
respect to sustain the character of Junius. 



64 THE CAUSE OF JUNITJS's DISCONTENT. 



CHAPTER III. 



Wrongs are often forgiven, but contempt never is; our pride re- 
members it for ever.* — Chesterfield. 

Injuries may be atoned for and forgiven, but insults admit of no 
compensation ; they degrade the mind in its own esteem and 
force it to recover its level by revenge. — Junius. 



There is yet another objection that has been opposed against 
the supposition that Lord Chesterfield was the author of the letters 
of Junius. It has been asserted that no cause whatever existed that 
could induce his lordship at the advanced age of seventy-three to 
re-appear before the public as an anonymous political writer. 

So far from this being true, we shall proceed to shew that not 
only sufficient offence had been given by Lord Chatham and the 
ministry in 1767, but that the indignities and slights which Lord 
Chesterfield had endured from the parties so vehemently abused 
by Junius, were, in their nature, such as would admit of no repa- 
ration. His feelings as a parent had been deeply wounded, and 
however unjustifiable his ambitious views may be considered in re- 
gard to his unfortunate son, he did not the less feel inclined to re- 
sent any insult offered to him. This, it is well known, was at all 
times the vulnerable part of Lord Chesterfield's character, and it was 
here that Lord Chatham in 1767 (perhaps unwittingly) struck the 
first blow, which was shortly followed by another source of uneasi- 
ness inflicted by the Shelburne party ; but it was reserved for the 



* This sentiment was first uttered by Lord Chesterfield in the House of 
Lords in 1740, and was much admired at the time for its delicacy (see Maty's 
Memoirs, p. 174). It occurs in many of the letters of Junius under a variety 
of forms of expression. "A generous mind offended by an insult equally sig- 
nal and unprovoked, looks back to services long neglected, and with justice 
unites the claim arising from those services to the insult which of right demands 
a signal reparation." A sense of injuries coupled with insult seems ever to have 
been present in the mind of Junius. 



THE CAUSE OE JTTNIUS"s DISCONTENT. 65 

Duke of Grafton to annihilate the last hope which Lord Chesterfield 
had of reinstating Mr. Stanhope in that rank of society from which 
he had been gradually receding from the moment that George the 
Third ascended the throne. 

It would have been well, perhaps, for the peace of mind of the 
King if he had imitated the conduct of the Prussian monarch, who, 
upon the representation of some of his courtiers concerning the 
disadvantages of Mr. Stanhope's birth, answered with warmth, 
*' Were he Lord Chesterfield's dog I would have him treated in 
the most distinguished manner." With such sentiments towards 
Lord Chesterfield, Geo. III. might have found a sincere friend and 
supporter, instead of a rancorous enemy under the mask of Junius. 

We would here claim the patience of the reader to a portion 
of this inquiry that demands some attention, in order to trace 
the origin and progress of Junius' s discontent and the gradual 
development of the cause of that writer's hatred of the Duke 
•of Grafton. 

Towards the close of the year 1766, Lord Chesterfield applied 
to Lord Chatham desiring him to secure a seat in Parliament 
for Mr. Stanhope, and received the assurance of Lord Chatham 
that " he would make it his own affair, and give it in charge 
to the Duke of Grafton, whose province it was to make the par- 
liamentary arrangement." 

This promise was made to Lord Chesterfield in Dec. 1766 ; 
on the 19th Dec, 1767, {eight months after Junius's first letter) 
Lord Chesterfield wrote to his son : — 

" You ask me questions concerning Lord Chatham which 
neither I, nor, I believe, anybody but himself can answer ; 
however, I will tell you all I know and all that I guess 
concerning him. This time twelvemonth he was here (Bath), 
and in good health and spirits, except now and then some little 
twinges of the gout. We saw one another four or five times 
at our respective houses, but for these last eight months he has 
been absolutely invisible to his most intimate friends, les sous 
ministres, he would receive no letter, nor so much as open any 
packet on business." 

From this it appears that four months had elapsed from the 
promise given by Lord Chatham to the first appearance of Junius, 
and that the date of that writer's first letter (28th April, 1767) 



66 THE CAUSE OF JTJNITJS's DISCONTENT. 

corresponds exactly with the period that Lord Chatham became 
invisible to his most intimate friends, and during the subsequent 
eight months " would receive no letter, nor so much as open 
any packet on business." 

In the meantime (that is to say, during the spring and autumn 
of 1767, while the earlier letters of Junius were in the course of 
publication) Lord Chesterfield, not being able to obtain any intel- 
ligence from Lord Chatham, had endeavoured to purchase a seat in 
parliament for Mr. Stanhope, but he had relied too long on the 
promise given by Lord Chatham, 1766. The opportunity had 
passed by — all the marketable boroughs had been disposed of, and 
his lordship's only hope now was, that Lord Chatham might yet 
keep his word. He therefore again requested an interview, and 
though denied admittance, he seems to. have entertained a hope 
that on his return to town he should be able to succeed. It was 
during this interval of suspense that Lord Chatham received the 
first anonymous letter from Junius, dated 2d January, 1768. But 
the most extraordinary circumstance connected with that letter is, 
that only a few days previous, Junius had again expressed his re- 
sentment against Lord Chatham. A short letter was published in 
the Public Advertiser, on the 22d Dec, 1767, under the signature 
of Downright,* in which the author attributes the alarming in- 
crease of the national debt, to Lord Chatham, and concludes by 
saying, "I cannot bear to see so much incense offered to an idol 
who so little deserves it." 

To account for this apparently inconsistent conduct in Junius, 
we must refer to Lord Chesterfield's letter of the 19th Dec, 
1767, wherein it will be seen that his lordship had a second 
time been repulsed in his attempt to obtain an interview. The 
short petulant letter of Downright may therefore fairly be ascribed 



* "22nd Dec, 1767. 
"Mr. Woodfall, — Your correspondent of yesterday, Mr. Macaroni, in his 
account of the new ministerial arrangements has thrust in a laboured bombast 
panegyrick on the Earl of Chatham, in which he tells us " that this country 
owes more to him than it can ever repay. Now, Mr. Woodfall, I entirely agree 
with Mr. Macaroni, that this country does owe more to Lord Chatham than it 
can ever repay, for to him we owe the greatest part of our national debt, and 
that I am sure we never can repay. I mean no offence to Mr. Macaroni nor 
any of your gentlemen authors who are so kind as to give us citizens an early 
peep behind the political curtain, but I cannot bear to see so much incense 
offered to an idol, who so little deserves it. 

" I am, yours, &c, Downright. 



THE CAUSE OF JUNITJS's DISCONTENT. 67 

to the hasty ebullition of Lord Chesterfield's disappointment. 
The subsequent conduct of Junius confirms this ; for from the 
date of Downright's letter (Dec. 22nd, 1767,) to the 16th Feb., 
1768, Junius held no correspondence with Woodfall. It was during 
this suspension of the labours of Junius that Lord Chesterfield 
informed his son of his unsuccessful attempt to purchase a seat 
in Parliament. " I spoke to a borough jobber, and offered him 
five-and-twenty hundred pounds for a secure seat in Parliament, 
but he laughed at my offer and said that there was no 
such thing as a borough to be had now. * * * * 
This, I confess, has vexed me a good deal, and made me the more 
impatient to know whether Lord Chatham has done anything 
in it, which I shall know when I go to town, as I propose to 
do in about a fortnight." — Letter to his Son, dated 19th Dec, 
1767. 

The private letter of Junius to Lord Chatham preceded Lord 
Chesterfield's return only two days. This extraordinary letter* 



* "Junius to the Earl of Chatham. Private and secret, to be opened by 

Lord Chatham only. 

"London, January 2, 1768. 

" My Lord, — If I were to give way to the sentiments of respect and vene- 
ration which I have always entertained for your character, or to the warmth of 
my attachment to your person, I should write a longer letter than your lord- 
ship would have time or inclination to read. But the information which I am 
going to lay before you, will, I hope, make a short one not unworthy your 
attention. I have an opportunity of knowing something, and you may depend 
on my veracity. During your absence from administration, it is well known 
that not one of the ministers has either adhered to you with firmness, or sup- 
ported, with any degree of steadiness, those principles on which you engaged 
in the King's service. From being their idol at first, their veneration for you 
has gradually diminished, until, at last, they have absolutely set you at defiance. 
The Chancellor, on whom you have particular reasons to rely, has played a 
sort of fast and loose game, and spoken of your lordship with submission or 
indifference, according to the reports he heard of your health, nor has he 
altered his language until he found you were really returning to town. 

" Many circumstances must have made it impossible for you to depend 
much upon Lord Shelburne or his friends, besides, that from his youth and 
want of knowledge, he was hardly of weight by himself to maintain any 
character in the cabinet. The best of him is, perhaps, that he has not acted 
with greater insincerity to your lordship than to former connections. 

"Lord Northington's conduct and character need no observation. A sin- 
gularity of manners added to a perpetual affectation of discontent, has given 
him an excuse for declining all share in the support of government, and at 
last conducted himself to his great object, a very high title, considering the 
species of his merit, and an opulent retreat. Your lordship is best able to 
judge of what may be expected from this nobleman's gratitude. 

" Mr. Conway, as your lordship knows by experience, is everything to 
everybody as long as by such conduct he can maintain his ground. "We have 
seen him in one day the humble prostrate admirer of Lord Chatham, the 

F 2 



68 THE CAUSE OF JTJNIUS's DISCONTENT. 

was probably intended to awaken the jealousy of Lord Chatham 
and induce him to take a part in public affairs. If this had been 
accomplished Lord Chesterfield might have succeeded in obtaining 
an audience with Lord Chatham. But his lordship remained in- 
flexible, — neither the private letter of Junius nor the earnest 
entreaties of the King could rouse Lord Chatham from his 
lethargy. He still guarded himself from intrusion under the plea* 
of mental imbecility. 

In bringing these dates and facts before the reader we flatter 
ourselves that we have solved the principal difficulty connected 
with the authorship of Junius, and that the early miscellaneous 
letters, in which Lord Chatham is so prominently distinguished, 
will no longer be considered inconsistent with the character and 
peculiar circumstances of the writer. 

From the date of the private and confidential letter of the 2nd 
Jan., 1768, Lord Chatham is seldom mentioned by Junius. The 



dearest friend of Rockingham and Richmond, fully sensible of the weight of 
the Duke of Bedford's party, no irreconcileable enemy to Lord Bute, and at 
the same time very ready to acknowledge Mr. Grenville's merit as a financier. 
Lord Hertford is a little more explicit than his brother, and has taken every 
opportunity of treating your lordship's name with indignity. 

" But these are facts of little moment. The most considerable remains. 
It is understood by the public that the plan of introducing the Duke of 
Bedford's friends entirely belongs to the Duke of Grafton, with the secret 
concurrence, perhaps, of Lord Bute, but certainly without your lordship's 
consent, if not absolutely against your advice. It is also understood that if 
you should exert your influence with the King to overturn this plan, the Duke 
of Grafton will be strong enough with his new friends to defeat any attempts 
of that kind, or if he should not, your lordship will easily judge to what 
quarter his Grace will apply for assistance. 

" My Lord, the man who presumes to give your lordship these hints 
admires your character without servility, and is convinced that if this country 
can be saved, it must be saved by Lord Chatham's spirit, by Lord Chatham's 
abilities."t 

t It is a curious circumstance that in the year 1741 Lord Chesterfield received a 
similar compliment from the pen of Lord Chatham : — 

" France by her influence and her arms, means to be sure to undo England and all 
Europe: by her air and climate she may do the reverse if they confirm the health of the 
only man who can save us." — Chatham Correspondence, Vol. I., p. 2. 

* The public in general believed that Lord Chatham was at this time 
insane, but his intimate friends and those about the Court often expressed 
their doubts upon this point. " I sent him my compliments (writes Lord 
Chesterfield in his letter of 19th Dec, 1767) and asked leave to wait upon him, 
but he sent me word that he was too ill to see anybody whatsoever. I met him 
frequently taking the air in his post chaise and he looked very well." See also 
the correspondence of Horace Walpole, George Selwyn, and Lady Hervey, in 
which similar doubts are expressed. Lord Chatham's sudden restoration and 
his subsequent conduct in parliament, favour the conjecture that he was only 
acting the " changeling" until a favourable opportunity should occur that he 
might again unite with his family in their opposition against government. 



THE CAUSE OF JUNIUS S DISCONTENT. 69 

writer gradually transferred his resentment to the Duke of Grafton, 
and here we must again have recourse to Lord Chesterfield's 
correspondence to account for the change that came over the 
spirit of Junius. For hitherto his Grace had been designedly 
spared by his now implacable enemy. 

On the 12th of March, 1768, Lord Chesterfield informed his 
son of the disappointment of his hopes of seeing him in parlia- 
ment. " You will not be in this parliament, at least, not at the 
beginning of it. I relied too much upon Lord Chatham's promise 
above a year ago at Bath. He desired that I would leave it to 
him ; that he would make it his own affair and give it in charge 
to the Duke of Grafton, whose province it was to make the parlia- 
mentary arrangements. This I depended upon, and I think with 
reason, but since that Lord Chatham has neither seen nor spoken 
to anybody and has been in the oddest way in the world. I sent to 
the Duke of Grafton to know if Lord Chatham had either spoken or 
sent to him about it, but he assured me that he had done neither ; 
that all was full or rather running over at present ; but that if he 
could crowd you in upon a vacancy he would do it with great 
pleasure. I am extremely sorry for this accident, for I am of a 
very different opinion from you about being in parliament, as no 
man can be of any consequence in this country who is not in it, 
and though one may not speak like a Lord Mansfield or a Lord 
Chatham, one may make a very good figure in a second rank. I 
do not pretend to give you any account of the present state of this 
country or ministry, not knowing nor guessing it myself."* 

The parliament was dissolved on the day previous to the date 
of this letter, but Lord Chesterfield was not, perhaps, aware at 
that time of the extent of the mortification that awaited him. 

In the " ministerial arrangement" Mr. Bradshaw, the private 
secretary of the Duke of Grafton, was returned for the first time 
a member of parliament for the borough of Bossigny. 

The indignation of Junius at this period was uncontrollable. 
On the 23rd April a letter appeared in the Public Advertiser, 



* This abrupt confession of ignorance of ministerial affairs from one who 
had hitherto been so alive to every political movement looks suspicious, and 
was probably intended to conceal from the curiosity of any one who might 
open his lordship's letter the designs of vengeance which he meditated against 
those who had offended him. 



70 THE CAUSE OF JUNIUS's DISCONTENT. 

addressed to the Duke of Grafton, in which the private character 
of his Grace is openly attacked. This letter is remarkable not 
only as being the first personal address of Junius, but the first in 
which the name of Mr. Bradshaw is introduced, thus identifying 
the objects of Junius's resentment with the parties who were at 
that time the cause of Lord Chesterfield's disappointment and 
vexation. But Junius was not satisfied by this display of his 
vindictive feeling, another letter was inserted in the Public 
Advertiser on the same day in which the writer accuses the Duke 
of Grafton of duplicity and breach of faith in his capacity as a 
minister, and as if resolved that his Grace at least should not 
misunderstand from what quarter these invectives came, a third 
letter was published on the 1st July, in which the writer alludes 
in such distinct terms to the circumstance of Lord Chesterfield's 
late disappointment, and to the conduct of the Duke of Grafton on 
that occasion, that scarcely a doubt can remain on the subject. 
The excuses suggested by Junius to the Duke of Grafton in this 
letter, were probably the exact words employed by his Grace when 
he answered Lord Chesterfield's inquiry as to the long promised 
seat in parliament for Mr. Stanhope ; and it seems evident that 
Mr. Bradshaw, the private secretary to the Duke of Grafton (now 
the successful rival of Mr. Stanhope) was the bearer of the 
unwelcome tidings to Lord Chesterfield. 

July I, 1768. 
" To Master Harry, in Black Boy Alley, 

At tu, simul obligasti 

Perjidum votis caput enigrescis 
Atrior multo 

" The moment I heard you had given a positive promise to 
Lord Rockingham in my favour, / did you the justice to be satisfied 

that all my hopes and pretensions to succeed Mrs. — 

were at an end. But a second promise, which I understand you 
have lately given to another, revives my spirits, and makes me 
flatter myself that you mean me no harm. I have one chance less 
against me than I had, for your last resolution is certainly the one 
you will not abide by, so that at present there is nothing in my 
way but your engagement to Lord Rockingham, the bad effects of 
which I shall endeavour to remove by this letter. I feel as strongly 



THE CAUSE OF JUNIUS's DISCONTENT. 71 

as you how much it would violate the consistency of your character 
to keep your word from any motive of probity or good faith ; but 
if I can suggest to you the means of performing your first promise 
to Lord Rockingham, and yet continuing as great a rascal as you 
would wish to be, all objections on the score of integrity will be 
removed, and you will owe me no small obligation into the bar- 
gain, * You are a mere hoy, Harry, notwithstanding the down 
upon your chin, and would do well to cultivate the friendship of 
women of experience. With all due submission to Miss Nancy's 
personal knowledge of the world, I believe she has not yet taught 
you the secret of keeping your word without hurting your prin- 
ciples. This is a science worthy of a superior genius ; and, 
without a compliment, Harry, you have talents to improve it into 
a system of treachery, which, though it may shorten your natural 
life, will make your reputation immortal." 

" In the first place, I presume, you will have no difficulty in 

breaking your word with Mrs. C y ; the whole distress lies in 

keeping it with your friend the Marquis. My advice is, therefore, 
that you should order Mr. Bradshaw to write to his lordship, and 
assure him, in the civilest terms, that ' circumstances which you had 
not foreseen — that it was with infinite concern — that his lordship's 
recommendation had such weight with you — that in any other instance 
— that you flattered yourself his lordship would he candid enough to 
distinguish hetween the minister and the man — hut that in short you 
were so unfortunately situated, Sfc. Sfc. Sfc.' Mr. Bradshaw's manner 
will make the message palatable ; and it would not be amiss if he 
were to carry it himself. Having disengaged yourself from Lord 
Rockingham, you must at the same instant write me a letter of 
congratulation, and desire me to take possession immediately. By 
these expedients you will preserve all the duplicity and wayward 
humour of your character — you will have the merit and satisfaction 
of failing to two people — you will confer a favour without obliging 
any body, and your enemies give you credit for a conduct equally 
honourable to your morals and your understanding." 



* The Duke of Grafton was in his 34th year, an age which Junius inva- 
riably considered far too young to be intrusted with the management of public 
affairs. The recommendation to cultivate the friendship of women of expe- 
rience will remind the reader of Lord Chesterfield's system of education. 



72 THE CAUSE OF JUNIUS's DISCONTENT, 

" Farewell, Harry, and believe me to be, with the most perfect 
contempt, yours, 

" Pomona." 

" P.S. If the place is to be given in trust for Miss Parsons, I 
beg leave to withdraw my pretensions, for I am determined not to 
suffer a woman to be quartered upon me, in any shape." 

But the writer's indignation was still unappeased, and his 
anger against the Duke of Grafton and his " cream-coloured 
parasite" found vent in poetry as well as prose. The following 
stanzes were at this time sent by Junius to Woodfall for insertion 
in the Public Advertiser :* — 

HARRY AND NAN. 

AN ELEGY IN THE MANNER OE TIBULLUS. 
I. 

Can Apollo resist or a poet refuse 

When Harry and Nancy solicit the muse, 

A statesman who makes the whole nation his care, 

And a nymph who is almost as chaste as she's fair. 

ii. 
****** 

****** 

* * * * * * 

****** 



* The original manuscript copy of this jeu d'esprit has been preserved 
among the autographs of Junius. It seems that Mr. H. S. Woodfall did not 
venture to insert the poem in the Public Advertiser, but by some means it 
found its way to Almon, who published it in the Political Register for 1768, 
Vol. II., p. 101. Whether Woodfall previously copied it by desire of Junius 
for some other paper, or whether Junius himself supplied the duplicate is 
uncertain. Almon published it without any comment. 

The genuineness of this manuscript is unquestionable, since the auto- 
gragh differs in no respect whatever from the numerous specimens that have 
been preserved. It is worthy also of remark that the copy now in the hands 
of Mr. H. D. Woodfall is a clean copy, and evidently transcribed from the 
rough draft of one who had not made this his first essay in verse. It exhibits 
the like neatness, care, and precision, which so eminently distinguish all the 
manuscripts of Junius. The only drawback to elegance in these documents is 
the shabby appearance of the paper on which some of the private letters are 
written, but this might have been one of the precautions which Junius thought 
necessary to adopt in communicating with his printer. His manuscripts for 
the press are usually written on common foolscap paper and his private 
letters on a folded half sheet of paper of a similar description. 



THE CAUSE OF JTTNIUs's DISCONTENT. 73 

III. 

From fourteen to forty our provident Nan* 
Had devoted her life to the study of man, 
And thought it a natural change in her station 
****** 

IV. 

Secret service had wasted the national wealth, 
But now 'tis the price of the minister's health, 
An expense which the Treasury well may afford, 
****** 

v. 
So lucky was Harry that nothing could mend 
His choice of a mistress but that of a friend, — 
A friend so obliging and yet so sincere, 
With pleasure in one eye and t'other a tear.f 

VI. 

My friend hold the candle, the lovers debate, 

And among them God knows how they settle the state ; 

Was there ever a nation so govern'd before, 

By a jockey, a gambler, a pimp, * * * * * 

Those who have had an opportunity of reading Lord Chester- 
field's poems will have no difficulty in recognising his lordship's 
style, so apparent in every line of the above stanzas. 

* Miss Ann Parsons. 

f Mr. Thomas Bradshaw. 

" Mr. Bradshaw affirms upon his honour (and so may the gift of smiling 
never depart from him." — Junius, Vol. II., p. 247. 

" That cream-coloured gentleman's tears, affecting as they are, carry con- 
solation along with them. He never weeps but like an April shower with a 
lambent ray of sunshine upon his countenance." — lb. p. 401. 

The smirking countenance of Mr. Bradshaw excited in Junius an uncon- 
querable disgust, but this feeling was not confined to that gentleman. The 
blubbering utterance of Lord North, the unbroken melodious eloquence of Mr. 
Laughlin McLeane, the pipe of Sir Fletcher Norton, the whiffling activity of 
Mr. Chamier, and the want of that activity in Tom Wheatley, were themes to 
which Junius delighted to recur. It would be tedious to refer to every passage 
in which Junius has thus inadvertently given proofs of his horror at the 
absence of the graces in any who opposed him. Nor did even those who 
resembled him in the polite accomplishments of a courtier escape animadver- 
sion. The pliant Barrington, the obsequious Bontetort, the pompous Suffolk, 
the courteous Hillsborough, and the humble Conway, were all equally offensive 
to the refined taste of Junius. None of these noblemen reached the standard 
of Junius's idea of the dignified deportment of a courtier or a gentleman. 



74 THE CAUSE OF JUNIUS's DISCONTENT. 

But Lord Chatham and the Duke of Grafton were not the only- 
persons who were censured by this writer during the first months 
of what may be called the Life of Junius. The Shelburnes, the 
Townshends, Lord Bute, and General Conway, with other mem- 
bers of the administration, often felt the keen irony of the great 
political satirist. And here we have the authority of Lord Ches- 
terfield to prove that against these also he had cause to be offended. 
For his lordship had not only been kept in suspense as to the 
promise of a seat in parliament for Mr. Stanhope, but he had been 
annoyed by the ministry sending a person to fill Mr. Stanhope's 
place during his temporary absence from Dresden, and although 
Lord Chesterfield endeavoured to console his son (who was at that 
time suffering from severe illness) it is pretty clear from the tone 
of his lordship's letters that neither he nor Mr. Stanhope had been 
treated with much courtesy by the party then in power. 

Lord Chesterfield's first letter on this subject is an answer to 
his son, who it appears had requested permission to leave Dresden 
for a time on account of his health : — " The day after I received 
your letter of the 21st past, I wrote to Lord Weymouth, and I send 
you his answer enclosed, from which f though I have not heard 
from him since) I take it for granted, and so may you, that his 
silence signifies his Majesty's consent to your request." 

And in his next letter, dated 12th April, 1768, Lord Chester- 
field wrote — 

"I believe you have guessed the true reason of Mr. Keith's 
mission, but, by a whisper that I have since heard, Keith is rather 
inclined to go to Turin as Charge d' Affaires. I forgot to tell you 
in my last that I was most positively assured that, the instant you 
return to Dresden, Keith should decamp. I am persuaded they 
will keep their word with me, as there is no one reason in the 
world why they should not. I will send your annual to Mr. Lar- 
pent in a fortnight, and pay the forty shillings a day quarterly if 
there should be occasion ; for, in my private opinion, there will be 
no Charge d' Affaires sent." 

In this particular, however, Lord Chesterfield was mistaken. 

Mr. Keith remained at Dresden, much to the annoyance of Mr. 

Stanhope ; and, after the death of that gentleman, obtained the 

honour of knighthood, and an appointment to a superior court. 

We should dwell longer on the annoyances to which Lord 



THE CAUSE OE JUNITTS's DISCONTENT. 75 

Chesterfield and his son were at this time subjected, if the cir- 
cumstance which led to the abandonment of all hope on the part 
of Lord Chesterfield, or desire of favours from the King and his 
Ministers, were not too clearly demonstrated by the conduct of 
Junius to render such a task necessary. 

Mr. Stanhope died on the 16th November, 1768. The mis- 
cellaneous letters of Junius, which had for some months before 
appeared in rapid succession in the Public Advertiser, immediately 
ceased, and, after a lapse of two months,* (with the exception of 
one solitary encomiastic letter, addressed to Mr. Grenville), the 
author re-appeared on the 21st January, 1769, under his new and 
well-known signature of Junius. 

It is not simply the circumstance that Lord Chesterfield had 
cause to be displeased with Lord Chatham, the Duke of Grafton, 
and the Court at the time that Junius began to write, that will, 
in itself, carry conviction home to Lord Chesterfield ; for others, 
among the several factions of that period, felt themselves aggrieved, 
and were violent in their abuse against Government. Even Lord 
Chatham was calumniated by the disappointed patriots of the day. 
But the facts which separate Lord Chesterfield from every other 
discontented politician, are traceable in the conduct of Junius 
towards the parties censured, and these facts are supported by dates 
and circumstances that will scarcely admit of a parallel, or even of 
a plausible adverse interpretation. It has been shown that not 
only sufficient cause did exist at that time to rouse Lord Chester- 
field's deepest indignation, but that the cause itself is manifested 
in the unguarded exhibition of Junius's personal feelings, as well 



* It may be here observed, that this is the third instance in which the sus- 
pension of the labours of Junius has been accounted for. The first interruption 
occurred during Lord Chesterfield's illness in the summer of 1767. The second, 
while Lord Chesterfield was expecting an interview with Lord Chatham in Jan., 
1768, and this more ominous silence which took place immediately on the death 
of Mr. Stanhope. To these extraordinary coincidences may be added the 
abrupt termination of the letters to Lord Barrington in May, 1772, at the 
time that Lord Chesterfield was seized with a dangerous illness, and the still 
more remarkable silence of Junius after the 19th January, 1773 ; a circum- 
stance that does not seem capable of explanation by any less event than the 
death of the author. Lord Chesterfield died (after a short illness) on the 24th 
March, 1773. On the 19th January Junius desired Woodfall to write if he 
had anything of moment to himself to communicate. The printer did not 
avail himself of this permission till the 8th March, when the first signal ap- 
peared in the Public Advertiser, indicating that a letter was ready for Junius. 
These signals were repeated for more than a month, but the mysterious author 
had in the meantime disappeared ! ! ! 



76 THE CAUSE OF JTJNITTs's DISCONTENT. 

as by the nature of the abuse which he levelled in the true spirit 
of retaliation against his enemies. 

The piety of St. James's, the chastity of the Princess Dowa- 
ger, and the spurious descent of the Duke of Grafton are themes 
of the writer's constant and bitterest invectives. On these subjects 
he dwelt with a malignancy which no political offence — no differ- 
ence of opinion or party feeling will either explain or justify. It 
was on these occasions, and these only, when a sense of his own 
wrongs was uppermost in his mind, that Junius forgot his accus- 
tomed politeness. 

" In what language shall I address so black, so cowardly a tyrant. 
Thou worse than one of the Brunswicks and all the Stuarts." 

This passage occurs in nearly the last letter to the Duke of 
Grafton, which Junius was induced to write in consequence of his 
Grace's refusal to allow the timber to be cut in Whittlebury 
Forest.* The frequent recurrence in this letter to the origin of the 
noble family of Grafton is equalled in absurdity only by the foul- 
ness of the terms employed. 

" Now it appears that a grant of Charles the Second to one of 
his bastards is to be held sacred and inviolable." 

" You asserted upon your honour that, in the grant of the ran- 
gership of Whittlebury Forest made by Charles the Second (whom 
with a modesty that would do honour to Mr. Rigby, you are pleased 
to call your ancestor) to one of his bastards from whom I make no 
doubt of your descent — " 



* Although this letter is more virulent than any in the author's edition of 
Junius, it seems hitherto to have attracted but little notice. This neglect is 
owing, perhaps, to the difficulty felt by all commentators to apply the circum- 
stance that occasioned this letter to any of the parties suspected as the writer. 
The refusal of the Duke of Grafton to allow the King's timber to be cut in Whit- 
tlebury Forest, over which his Grace was hereditary ranger, could affect the 
private interest of only a very few of the nobility, and only such as held similar 
grants from the Crown. Among these was Lord Chesterfield. His lordship's 
attention would, therefore, necessarily be directed to the conduct of the Duke 
of Grafton on a subject that so nearly concerned him, but with the public gene- 
rally it was of very little consequence whether the timber required for the navv 
was selected from Whittlebury Forest, or a new order was made out at the 
Treasury transferring the right of spoliation to Sherwood or any other royal 
forest in the kingdom. The importance, however, which Junius himself at- 
tached to this letter is evident from the private note which accompanied it. 

" The enclosed is of such importance, so very material, that it must be given 
to the public immediately. I will not advise, though I think you safe ; all I say 
is that, I rely upon your care to have it printed either to-morrow in your own 
paper, or to-night in the Pacquet."- — Private Letter, No. 38, vol. I, p. 226. 



THE CAUSE OE JUNIUS's DISCONTENT. 77 

And in this one letter the Duke of Grafton is reminded no less 
than Jive times of the baseness of his origin ; a circumstance that 
plainly indicates the true source of the writer's malevolence. The 
parties who had despised Mr. Stanhope on account of his birth 
were invariably the objects of Junius's lasting resentment. This 
was an " unexpiated" and " unexpiable" offence that admitted of 
no compromise. The writer felt that he had not only been injured, 
but he had been insulted, and his wounded pride endeavoured to 
recover its level by revenge. 

On a review of these circumstances (without any reference to 
the multitude of additional proofs which lie thickly scattered 
throughout the works of Junius) it may be affirmed that had Mr. 
Stanhope been treated with the common courtesy due to his long 
services under Government, and had obtained a seat in parliament 
at the request of Lord Chesterfield, the letters oe Junius 

WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN WRITTEN. 



78 JUNIUS DISCOVERED IN 1772, 



CHAPTER IV. 



At present there is something oracular in the delivery of my 
opinions — I speak from a recess which no human curiosity 
can penetrate. — Junius. 

The universal question will be who is the author or supposed 
author of this paper?* To which, if I do not give an 
answer, I must beg leave to be excused, being determined, 
at present, to shine like phosphorus in the dark, and scatter 
my light from the impenetrable recess of my own closet.t — 
Chesterfield. 



Circumstances are strongly in favour of the rumour that 
Junius was discovered to the King soon after the publication of 
the genuine edition of the letters in 1772, nor is it improbable 
that his own indiscretion furnished " the myrmidons of the Court" 
with the means of tracing him in the miscellaneous letters which 
appeared in the Public Advertiser after he had closed his corre- 
spondence under the signature of Junius. This part of the 
inquiry is both interesting and important, and deserves some 
attention from the reserve of the Grenville family in reference to 



* It may be worth while to observe that Junius almost invariably designates 
his letters by this title, which seems to imply that the author had been accus- 
tomed at some time to write Essays for the periodicals. In fact, many of the 
letters of Junius assume more the character of Essays than personal addresses. 

t The literary character of Junius and Lord Chesterfield may be traced in 
these mottos. Scarcely two celebrated contemporaneous authors would 
have betrayed so little regard for posthumous fame. Junius determined that his 
secret should perish with him. The very few Essays which have been incorpo- 
rated in Lord Chesterfield's Works appear to have been acknowledged by him with 
reluctance, and although he has confessed himself to be the author of no less 
than three periodical papers, (Fog's Journal, Common Sense, and Old England) 
only a very scanty selection of his Essays has descended to posterity. Even 
his admirable Papers in the World would have been lost to the public, if his 
friend, Lord Lyttleton, had not by chance been shewn the manuscript of the 
first essay, and recognised at once the hand writing, but more especially the 
style, of the writer. A strong proof that Lord Chesterfield was indifferent 
whether his " innumerable trifles" were accepted or rejected by the publisher 
so long as his name was concealed. 



JUNIUS DISCOVERED IN 1772. 79 

certain private letters of Junius, which have been for so many 
years withheld from the public. 

But before we enter upon the inquiry whether the secret of 
Junius has not been long known to certain parties, it will be well 
to examine the evidence which tends to shew that the author had 
often been suspected. 

In the first private letter which has been preserved, dated 
April 20, 1769, Junius desired Woodfall that if any inquiries 
should be made about his " papers''' to give him a hint. The 
writer by this evidently expected that the style and matter of his 
writings would induce suspicion, and he felt it necessary to use 
every precaution for his safety. This expectation, it appears, was 
soon verified, for in his third letter to Woodfall, dated 15th July, 
1769, he says, "I have received the favour of your note. From 
the contents of it, I imagine you have something to communicate 
to me. If that be the case, I beg you will be particular and also 
that you will tell me candidly whether you know or suspect who I 
am. Direct a letter to Mr. William Middleton, to be left at the 
bar of the New Exchange Coffee House, on Monday as early as 
you think proper." 

This private correspondence probably referred to the first 
serious alarm of Junius, which was caused by the impertinent 
inquiry of Swinney, (see private letter, No. 5). His next source 
of inquietude was occasioned by a letter signed A.B., relative to 
the Duke of Rutland. This letter was published in the London 
Evening Post, Nov. 7, and reprinted at the desire of Junius, in 
the Public Advertiser, Nov. 10, 1769. 

The reader is earnestly requested to mark the dates in this part 
of the inquiry. 

On the 5th Oct., 1769, Junius wrote to Woodfall on the subject 
of a packet (the nature of which cannot now be ascertained) 
although it evidently had relation to the search that was then 
making to discover the author. His fears, however, at the date 
of this letter appear to have been somewhat allayed, and in his 
next letter, dated 8th Nov., he wrote to Woodfall, " I have been 
out of town these three weeks, and though I got your last could 
not conveniently answer it * * * I should be much obliged if you 
would reprint (and in the front page, if not improper or inconve- 
nient) a letter in the London Evening Post of last night to the Duke 



80 JUNIUS DISCOVERED IN 1772. 

of Grafton. If it had not been anticipated I should have touched 
upon the subject myself. However it is not ill done, and it is 
very material that it should spread. The person alluded to is 
Lord Denbigh. I should think you might venture him with a D. 
As it stands few people can guess who is meant." 

Two days after the letter signed A. B. had appeared in the 
Public Advertiser (i. e. Nov. 12) Junius wrote to Woodfall. " I 
return you the letters you sent me yesterday. A man who can 
neither write common English nor spell is hardly worth attending 
to. It is, probably, a trap for me. I should be glad, however, 
to know what the fool means. If he writes again open his letter, 
and if it contains anything worth my knowing send it, otherwise 
not. Instead of C. in the usual place say only A letter when you 
have occasion to write to me again, I shall understand you." 

The caution given to Woodfall in this letter, implies that 
Junius was uneasy at the contents of the letters which he had 
received, though at that time he was not perhaps aware that the 
letter signed A. B. had been generally attributed to him, for it was 
not till the 16th of Nov., that he desired Woodfall to assure the 
public that the letter signed A. B. was not written by Junius. 
This notice must have appeared on the very day that Junius was 
charged with being the author. The following is a paragraph 
from a letter which appeared in the Public Advertiser on the 
17th Nov., 1769:— 

"Junius may change his signature, his manner he cannot 
change. The far-fetched antithesis, the empty period, the pert 
loquacity, distinguish the writer, and the rancorous and impudent 
falsehood discovers the man. In vain has he attempted to conceal 
himself under initials, he is as invariable in the tenor of his dic- 
tion as he is in the bias of his mind. It was, however, a mark of 
some judgment in Mr. ■ to use a new signature in your 

paper of Friday. A. B. may praise the Duke of Rutland though 
Junius has unfamously traduced the Marquis of Granby." 

From the contents of this letter it is evident that the writer 
entertained the general opinion, current at that time, that Mr. 
Burke was Junius. 

We would now call attention to the dates of Lord Chester- 
field's letters at the time that the letter A. B. was inserted in the 
Public Advertiser. The letter which Junius wrote to Woodfall 



JUNIUS DISCOVERED IN 1772. 81 

before he left town is dated 5th October, and on the 8th November 
he writes, " I have been out of town three weeks." On referring 
to Lord Chesterfield's correspondence, we find that his lordship 
left town two days after the date of Junius' s letter, that is to say, 
on the 7th October ; but we have no evidence to show that Lord 
Chesterfield was in London on the 8th November, for he wrote to 
Mrs. E. Stanhope on the 5th November, from Bath. Yet Junius, 
or his confidential friend, must have been in London, or its imme- 
diate neighbourhood, from the 8th November to the 16th Nov., 
for in his letter of the 12th November, he says, " I return you the 
letters you sent me yesterday."" As this is almost the only instance 
in which the absence of Lord Chesterfield does not correspond 
with the apparent situation of Junius, we shall endeavour to ex- 
plain why no record can be found of Lord Chesterfield's abode 
during the ten days that Junius was under so great alarm from 
the inquiry as to the writer of the letter signed A. B. 

In the first place, there is no proof that Lord Chesterfield did 
not leave Bath immediately after the date of his letter to Mrs. 
Stanhope. If his business in London was to transmit the letter, 
A. B., to the publisher of the London Evening Post, it is more than 
probable that he would keep his journey a secret; and this he 
could easily do, by taking up his abode at Blackheath for a few 
days. His letter to Mrs. Stanhope would induce his acquaintance 
to believe that he was still at Bath, and put a stop to all inquiries. 
Lord Chesterfield might also suspect from Mrs. Stanhope's inti- 
macy with Lord North that she was employed by that minister 
as a spy upon his movements. He could not, therefore, more 
effectually have guarded against intrusion than by the letter which 
he wrote a day or two before Junius returned to town. 

Although it was indispensable that Junius should be almost a 
constant resident in London, or its immediate vicinity, it is not 
improbable that the composition and copying of the letters was 
effected in a place where the writer's seclusion would be less 
noticed, and where he would be more secure against surprise or 
interruption. For this purpose Lord Chesterfield was provided 
with a retreat at Blackheath, where he might defy human curiosity 
to penetrate. 

But of all the subjects chosen by Junius for the display of his 
political knowledge, there was none, perhaps, that so nearly led ta 



82 JUNIUS DISCOVERED IN 1772. 

his detection as his letter on the Convention with Spain, in 1770. 
This letter was published on the 30th January, 1771, in which the 
writer professed to take into consideration His Majesty's Speech 
of the 13th November, and the subsequent measures of Govern- 
ment : but he confined himself chiefly to that paragraph of the 
speech which related to the restitution of Falkland Island. 

" The excessive caution" says Junius, " with which the speech 
was drawn up, had impressed upon me an early conviction that no 
serious resentment was thought of, and that the conclusion of the 
business, whenever it appeared, must, in some degree, be dis- 
honourable to England. There appears through the whole speech 
a guard and reserve in the choice of expression which shows how 
careful the ministry were not to embarrass their future projects by 
any firm or spirited declaration from the throne."* 

The day after this letter had appeared in the Public Adver- 
tiser Junius wrote to his printer in exultation at its success, nor 
does he appear to have overrated the sensation it was calculated 
to produce, for it soon attracted the attention of Government, and 
Dr. Johnson was ordered to check the daring attacks of the pre- 
sumptive writer. 

" Of the Doctor's Pamphlet" says the editor of the enlarged 
edition of the Letters, " the ministry were not a little proud, and 
especially as they made no doubt that Junius would hereby be 
drawn into a paper contest with Johnson, and that hence they 

* The opposition of Lord Chesterfield to the Spanish Convention, 1739, 
bears a strict analogy in language and sentiment to that of Junius in 1771. 
The very expressions are employed by both on the two occasions ; — 

"I shall agree, my lords, that those expressions which may be thought to 
relate to any part of our late conduct are very general, more than ordinary 
care has been taken to make them so, but even this is an argument for the 
amendment proposed. So great caution is a sort of proof that matters are not 
all right, it shews a consciousness of some misbehaviour which ought to give 
us suspicion. 

" The paragraphs that relate to our late transactions are indeed so general, 
and the terms of expression so artfully and cautiously chosen, that upon any 
ordinary occasion I should not, perhaps, have made an objection ; but, my 
lords, the present emergency is the most extraordinary, the most important 
that has ever happened since I have had the honour to sit in this House. Our 
trade, our very being, is deeply concerned in every resolution we can come to 
during this Session of Parliament. The only profitable branch of our trade, I 
am afraid — the branch upon which all the other, and, consequently, the being 
of this nation depends, is now at stake." 

Junius, in his letter on the convention, says, — 

u As far as the probability of argument extends, we may safely pronounce 
that a conjuncture which threatens the very being of this country has been 
wilfully prepared and forwarded by our own ministry." 



JUNIUS DISCOVERED IN 1772. 83 

would possess a greater facility of detecting him. Junius seems 
to have been aware of the trap laid for him, and made no direct 
reply whatever." 

But, in the meantime, a more dangerous opponent had appeared 
in the character of Alcides. The hints conveyed by that writer's 
letter were too pointed to be misunderstood by Junius ; he, there- 
fore, prudently declined the contest. 

Alcides had thus described the anonymous author : — 

"A distinguished advocate for popular licentiousness,* who 
has lain long buried under the ruins of patriotism, has again worked 
his way into the world, for the honourable purpose of vilifying his 
Sovereign and misleading his country; and, it is a melancholy 
reflection that, among the utterly uninformed — among those who 
take assertion for proof, and receive scurrillity for argument — his 
opinions upon the Spanish declaration are thought to be unanswer- 
able. Yet, if we examine these opinions with the most cursory 
eye, we shall find them so replete with absurdity — so founded in 
ignorance, that the severity of our censure must be mixed with 
compassion, and our indignation at the profligacy be mitigated by 
our pity for the weakness of the author." 

In order to add force to this description, Alcides emphati- 
cally styles Junius " this polite writer," and concludes his letter 
with a sarcastic reference to the predominant vice of Lord Ches- 
terfield, " The dice which Junius plays with are, however, palpa- 
bly loaded." 

These inuendoes were, surely, sufficient to warn Junius from 
entering the lists against Alcides, and to deter him from answering 
the pamphlet of Dr. Johnson; but, with his usual skill, he 
diverted public attention from these opponents, by answering a 
less dangerous antagonist, and thus put an end to the controversy. 

It is probable, however, that the public misapplied the hints 
thrown out by Alcides, although so evidently designed to point at 
Lord Chesterfield ; and that the distinguished advocate for popular 
licentiousness was supposed to be Mr. Wilkes, or one of the par- 



* Lord Chesterfield was the most distinguished advocate for the licentious- 
ness of the stage. His speech in 1737, on the Licensing Bill, has long been 
considered a masterpiece of oratory in defence of popular licentiousness, and 
the unbridled liberty of the press. 

g 2 



84 JUNIUS DISCOVERED IN 1772. 

tisans who upheld him when he incurred the prosecution which led 
to his outlawry : but a little consideration would have shown that 
neither Wilkes nor his advocates could, with propriety, have been 
said to have lain long buried under the ruins of patriotism. This 
inuendo referred to the undermining of those patriots who had for 
so many years withstood the power of Sir Robert Walpole, when 
that able politician, like a political Sampson, withdrew the chief 
pillars of the opposition (Carteret and Pulteney), and thereby pulled 
down destruction upon his enemies, and buried them under the 
ruins of patriotism. The distinguished advocate for popular licen- 
tiousness could be no other than he who had rendered himself so 
conspicuous by his opposition to the bill for restraining the licen- 
tiousness of the stage. 

In order to show that Alcides had sufficient grounds to suspect 
Lord Chesterfield to be the author of this letter, nothing more 
would be necessary than to quote his lordship's speeches on the 
Spanish Convention, 1739. The same inveterate hostility towards 
the Spanish court, and the like professions of regard for the dignity 
of the Crown and the honour of his native country, are discernible 
throughout the whole of Junius's letters on this subject. It is in 
vain to say that Junius imitated the conduct and language of Lord 
Chesterfield, since, in that case, he would not have been intimi- 
dated by the hints of his opponents, nor would he have sought 
shelter under other signatures when he desired to display his know- 
ledge of the treaties and policy of Spain towards Great Britain, 
from the earliest period of England's conventions with that nation. 

Enough has, perhaps, been said, to prove that the contest on the 
subject of the Spanish Convention brought the anonymous writer 
to the very brink of detection, and that nothing but his consum- 
mate art and dissimulation could have averted discovery, or again 
lulled suspicion. Subsequently to this, Junius was threatened by 
the inquiries of (Jarrick, and for some time he was in constant 
alarm, lest Woodfall should divulge some circumstance that would 
betray him ; but he was not, perhaps, aware, that Lord Barrington 
was his most dangerous enemy, until he found, in 1772, that Mr. 
D'Oyly had been driven from the War Office. 

That Lord Barrington was the principal person employed by the 
jking at this time to discover the anonymous writer will appear evi- 
dent from the conduct of Junius, 



JUNIUS DISCOVEBED IN 1772. 85 

On the 18th January, 1772, Junius wrote to Woodfall, " The gen- 
tleman that transacts the conveyancing part of our correspondence 
tells me there was much difficulty last night," and a few days after 
he commenced a series of letters addressed to Lord Barrington, at 
the same time he cautioned Woodfall to take care that it was not 
known that the letters signed Veteran were written by Junius, for 
although he had on many occasions, in the course of his correspon- 
dence, spoken in terms of haughty contempt of Lord Barrington, 
yet under the signature of Junius he had cautiously avoided giving 
Lord Barrington any clue to suspect him. As Veteran, however, 
he felt himself more secure, and related facts that could have been 
remembered by none but a veteran in politics. He thus describes 
Lord Barrington's entrance into public life, and proves how well his 
lordship had supported the character of Political Vicar of Bray. * 
" The Duke of Newcastle's livery was the first habit you put 
on. What an indefatigable courtier at his levee. What an assi- 
duous parasite at his table ! Was there a dirty job to be performed 
— away went Barrington. Was a message to be carried — who 
waits there ? — My Lord Barrington. After ruining that brave and 
worthy man, General Fowke, under the auspices of the Duke of 
Newcastle, who saved you from destruction, you deserted to Mr. Pitt 
the moment he came into power. Before the late king's death, you 
secured a footing at Carlton House, and were prepared to abandon 
your last patron the moment Lord Bute assumed the reins of go- 
vernment. From Lord Bute to Mr. Grenville there was an easy 
transfer of your affections. You are the common friend of all 
ministers, but it is not in your policy to engage in overt acts of hos- 
tility against those who may perhaps be next in turn to patronise 
Lord Barrington. My dear lord or my dear sir are titles with which 
you have occasionally addressed every man who ever had an office, 
or the chance of an office, in this kingdom. Even the proscribed 
John Wilkes, the moment he was sheriff, had a claim upon your 
politeness. Your character was a little battered by the frequency of 
your political amours when Lord Rockingham took you into keep- 



*This character was first given to Lord Barrington by Mr. Philip Stanhope 
in 1756. " I never doubted," writes Lord Chesterfield, " the prudent versatility 
of your Vicar of Bray." — Vol. IV., p. 198. 

Junius knew that the Duke of Newcastle saved Lord Barrington from des- 
truction ! His grace was at that time in the habit of consulting with Lord 
Chesterfield on any political emergency. 



86 JUNIUS DISCOVERED IN 1772. 

ing. While you existed by his protection you intrigued with the 
Duke of Grafton. Another change succeeded. Your mind was 
open to new lights ; and, without doubt, Lord Chatham was the 
only man in the kingdom fit to govern a great empire. Still, how- 
ever, your opinion of men and things were not perfectly settled. 
When the Duke of Grafton took the lead the pliant Barrington, 
of course, saw things in a different point of view. There is nothing 
in your attachments that savours of obstinacy. When his Grace 
resigned you soon discovered that, to establish government upon a 
solid footing, the minister's presence was indispensable in the 
House of Commons. Lord North was then the man after your 
Lordship's own heart. In your ideas, the first Lord of the Trea- 
sury, for the time being, is always perfect, but every change is for 
the better. With all your professions of attachment to the tempo- 
rary minister, I tell him, and I tell the public, that at this very hour 
you are caballing with the Duke of Grafton and the Bedfords to 
obtain the recal of Lord Townshend, and to drive Lord North from 
the Treasury. But they all know' you. In the inventory of the 
discarded minister's effects Lord Barrington is always set down 
as a fixture." 

This sketch of Lord Barrington' s life was written a short time 
before Mr. Francis was turned out of the War Office. Had Lord 
Barrington given himself time to examine the foregoing paragraph 
carefully, and had not been hurried away by the first impression, 
arising from the exposure of scenes described by Junius as having 
taken place in the War Office, it is probable that Mr. Francis 
would not have lost his situation. For Lord Barrington must have 
known that nearly thirty years had elapsed since he first put on the 
Duke of Newcastle's livery, and that none but a person who had 
attended the levees, and been present with his lordship at the Duke 
of Newcastle's table, could have described his conduct so well. 

Junius published his " Memoirs of Lord Barrington" on the 
12th May, 1772, and then abruptly terminated his correspondence. 
It is presumed that it was about the date of this letter that Lord 
Barrington succeeded in discovering that the writer of the letters 
signed Veteran, was Junius. For when Lord Barrington read the 
history of his life thus faithfully and circumstancially related, with 
the prominent features of his political character drawn by so 
skilful a hand, and his actions in by-gone days portrayed by touches 



JUNIUS DISCOVERED IN 1772. 87 

that none but an eye-witness could so happily have delineated, he 
must \±2ivefelt that Philip Francis, a discarded clerk of the War 
Office, could not have been his historian. He would, therefore, 
naturally turn his inquiries to the very few then living who had 
known him in early life, and the truth probably flashed upon him 
at once that his enemy was no other than Loud Chesterfield. 
It was he who had been his associate at the Fountain Club. It 
was he who had witnessed his servility at the Duke of Newcastle's 
table, and at his own, for it was under Lord Chesterfield's banner 
that Lord Barrington made his first step in preferment.^ This clue 
being obtained, the difficulty of tracing the letters of Junius to Lord 
Chesterfield was overcome. Nor is it improbable that Mr. Francis 
assisted in the search, for the father of Philip Francis was chap- 
lain to Lord Chesterfield, and the ex-clerk was, perhaps, too ready 
to admit the share he might inadvertently have had in disclosing 
certain scenes at the War Office, or in transacting at times, with- 
out any guilty knowledge, the conveyancing part of the correspon- 
dence of Junius. 

But it was not, perhaps, from Mr. Francis alone that Junius 
obtained his information of what was going on at the War Office. 
He probably heard it from the parties themselves, who had been 
insulted by Lord Barrington, and his associate, Mr. Chamier. The 
following passage seems to hint at the source from which one of 
the scenes was derived : — 

" Let us suppose a case which every man acquainted with the 
war office will admit to be very probable. Suppose a Lieutenant 
General, who perhaps may be a peer or a member of the House of 
Commons, does you the honour to wait upon you for instructions 
relative to his regiment. After explaining yourself to him with 
your usual accuracy and decision, you naturally refer him to your 
deputy for the detail of the business. My dear general, I'm pro- 
digiously hurried. But do me the favour to go to Mr. Shammy — 
go to little Waddlewell — go to my duckling — go to little three per 
cents, reduced — you'll find him a mere scrip of a secretary, an 



* Lord Barrington entered public life shortly after his return from his 
travels, having been elected member for Berwick in 1740, in the 23rd year of 
his age. Hejoined the opposition, who were at that time distinguished by the 
name of " The Patriots," of which band Lord Chesterfield might then be con- 
sidered the leader. Lord Chesterfield made it one of the conditions of his 
coming into office that Lord Barrington should be provided for. 



88 JUNIUS DISCOVERED IN 1772. 

omnium of all that's genteel, the activity of a broker, the polite- 
ness of a hairdresser, the — the — the, &c." 

" Our general officer we may presume being curious to see this 

wonderful Girgashite, the following dialogue passes between 
them : — 

" Lieutenant- General. — Sir, the Secretary at War refers me to 

you for an account of what was done ? 

" Waddlewell. — Done, Sir, closed at three eights — looked flat 
I must own, but to morrow, my dear Sir, I hope to see a more 
lively appearance. 

" Lieutenant- General. — Sir, I speak of the noneffective fund. 

" Waddlewell.. — Fund, my dear Sir. In what fund would you 
wish to be concerned. Speak freely. You may confide in your 
humble servant. I'm all discretion. 

"Lieutenant- General. — Sir, I really don't understand you. Lord 
Barrington says my regiment may possibly be thought of for 
India. 

" Waddlewell. — India, my dear Sir. Strange fluctuation — 
from fourteen and a half to twenty-two never stood a moment, 
but ended cheerful — no mortal can account for it. 

" Lieutenant- General. — Damn your stocks, Sir, tell me whether 
the commission — 

" Waddelwell. — As for commission, my dear Sir, I'll venture to 
say that no gentleman in the alley does business upon easier terms. 
I never take less than an eighth, except from Lord Sandwich and 
my brother-in-law, but they deal largely and you must be sensible, 
my dear Sir, that, when the Commission is extensive it may be 
worth a broker's while to content himself with a sixteenth. 

" The general officer, at last fatigued with such extravagance, 
quits the room in disgust, and leaves the intoxicated broker to 
settle his accounts himself. 

" After such a scene as this, do you think that any man of rank 
or consequence in the army will ever apply to you or your deputy 
again? Will any officer of rank condescend to receive orders from 
a little whiffling broker, to whom he may formerly have given 
half-a-crown for negotiating an hundred pound stock, or sixpence 
for a lottery ticket ? My Lord, without a jest, it is indecent, it is 
odious, it is preposterous. Our gracious master, it is said, reads 
the newspapers. If he does, he shall know minutely in what 



JUNIUS DISCOVERED IN 1772. 89 

manner you treat his faithful army. This is the first of sixteen* 
letters addressed to your lordship which are ready for the press, 
and shall appear as fast as it suits the printer's convenience.— 
Veteran." 

The signature, as well as the subject of this letter, implies 
that it was either written by a general officer who was a peer, or a 
member of the House of Commons, or by some friend of such 
general officer. 

Major-General Irwine (at that time a partizan of the Grenvilles, 
and the intimate friend of Lord Chesterfield) was probably the per- 
son from whom the writer obtained his information. The circum- 
stances of General Irwine might compel him occasionally to visit 
the war office, and it was, perhaps, from him and Adjutant- General 
Harvey, and not from Sir P. Francis, that Junius chiefly became 
acquainted with the occurrences in Lord Barrington's department. 

General Irwine was at that time a supporter of Lord Temple's 
party, and therefore could not expect to be very courteously received 
by Lord Barrington. Adjutant- General Harvey was an old and in- 
timate friend of Lord Chesterfield, and from such sources his lord- 
ship would find no difficulty in making himself acquainted with the 
movements at the war office. 

The conjecture that Junius did not receive his information from 
Mr. Francis, is rendered still more probable by the letter which 
Junius wrote immediately after Mr. Francis was dismissed. In that 
letter he calls upon Mr. D'Oyly and Mr. Francis to declare their 
reasons for quitting the war office. Neither of these gentlemen 
could have been so silly as to have written such a letter, but Junius 
felt that some apology was necessary for the mischief he had occa- 
sioned, and the only reparation in his power was a public acknow- 
ledgment of the high sense he entertained of their characters and 
conduct, and he might hope by this appeal to be furnished with the 
means of retaliating upon Lord Barrington. Junius, no doubt, 
knew why Mr. Francis was dismissed, but as the public was not 
aware of the suspicions entertained by Lord Barrington, he could 
not defend Mr. Francis until that gentleman had publicly declared 
his reason for quitting the war office. 

* Six only of these promised letters appeared. The last, entitled Memoirs 
of Lord Barrington, is dated 12th May, 1772. Just at this time Lord Chester- 
field was seized with a serious illness, which lasted during the summer of 1772. 



90 JUNIUS DISCOVERED IN 1772. 

But there is one scene described in the letters to Lord Barring- 
ton which Mr. Francis would hardly have ventured to publish, how- 
ever much he might have been offended by the appointment of the 
person who had supplanted him. The scene is described in the 
second letter to Lord Barrington, a portion of which has already 
been given. 

"By garbling and new modelling the war office, you think 
you have reduced the army to subjection. Walk in, gentlemen, 
business done by Chamier and Co. To make your office complete 
you want nothing now but a paper lanthorn at the door and the 
scheme of a lottery pasted upon the window. With all your folly 
and obstinacy I am a loss to conceive what countenance you 
assumed when you told your Royal master that you had taken 
a little Frenchified broker from Change Alley, to entrust with 
the management of all the affairs of his army. Did the fol- 
lowing dialogue leave no impression upon your disordered imagi- 
nation ? You know where it passed. 

K. — Pray, my Lord, whom have you appointed to succeed Mr. 
D'Oyly? 

B. — Please your Majesty, I believe I have made a choice 
that will be highly acceptable to the public and the army. 

K.— Who is it? 

B. — Sire, it's Appelle Ragosin, born and educated in Change 
Alley. He glories in the name of broker, and to say nothing 
of my Lord Sandwich's friendship, I can assure your Majesty 
he has always kept the best company at Jonathan's. 

K. — My lord, I never interfere in these matters, but I cannot 
help telling your lordship that you might have consulted my 
honour, and the credit of my army a little better. Your appoint- 
ment of so mean a person, though he may be a very honest 
man, in the mystery he was bred to, casts a reflection upon me, 
and is an insult to the army. At all events, I desire it may be 
understood that I have no concern in this ill-judged, indecent 
measure, and that I do not approve of it. 

I suppose, my lord, you thought this conversation might 
be sunk upon the public. It does honour to his Majesty, and 
therefore you concealed it." 

Although the foregoing dialogue is not to be taken as lite- 
rally true, yet the manner in which it is introduced shows that 



JUNIUS DISCOVERED IN 1772. 91 

the writer had some foundation for asserting that the King was 
not pleased at the appointment of Mr. Chamier ; but it is not 
credible that Mr. Francis would have thus publicly exposed 
his principal, even if he had learned this secret of the Council 
Chamber from his father, who was at that time a favourite with 
the King. Nevertheless, he was probably suspected by Lord 
Barrington, for a few days after the date of this letter Mr. 
Francis was dismissed from the War Office. How he was re- 
warded for the injury he had sustained by these unjust suspi- 
cions, or for the share he might have had in discovering the 
author, has been adduced by Mr. Taylor as one of the proofs 
that he was the writer of the letters. 

" We have only to conceive," says Mr. Taylor, " that Sir 
Philip Francis was Junius, and everything is explained." 

The public will not have much difficulty in determining whether 
" a mere clerk in office" would have been rewarded or punished 
if he had been discovered to be the author of Junius's letters. 
The King and his ministers would have been but too happy in 
finding their enemy in so subordinate a rank in society, nor would 
they have wished to conceal his name, or spared such an offender 
the disgrace which must have attached to him as a treacherous servant 
of the crown. But in Lord Chesterfield the case was widely diffe- 
rent. To have it publicly known that his lordship had spent 
the last years of his life in revealing secrets of the court and of 
the cabinet, and in exposing the weaknesses of the king and his 
ministers, would have been more galling to the parties than even 
the very libels themselves. It became necessary, therefore, that 
those who had assisted in the discovery of Junius should be 
silenced, and, in some instances rewarded, to ensure their fidelity. 
Mr. Francis left England immediately after the publication of 
Junius's last letter, and while he was abroad Lord Barrington, who 
had a few months before turned him out of the War Office, 
"honourably and generously" recommended him to Lord North, who 
procured him the rank of a sovereign in India, and the dismissed 
clerk, who could not retain a salary of £400, was at once raised 
to one of £10,000 a year ! ! ! It is further stated, that on Mr. 
Francis's return to England in 1780, " nobody would speak to him 
but the King and Edmund Burke, and that his majesty was very 
gracious to him ;" — and all these honours, Mr. Taylor would per- 



92 JUNIUS DISCOVERED IN 1772. 

suade us, were bestowed upon Mr. Francis because the King had 
discovered that he was the author of the letters of Junius ! 

Mr. D'Oyly, who was the first victim of Lord Barrington's 
unjust suspicions, (shortly after Mr. Francis's appointment), also 
obtained a lucrative employment under government. The Gren- 
villes were reconciled and General Irwine became a favourite of 
Geo. III.* The enquiry after Junius, as far as the Court was 
concerned, has from that time been buried in profound silence. 

But it was not merely the extraordinary facts related by Junius 
in these letters to Lord Barrington that alone supplied the Court 
with means to lead to the detection of the veteran Junius. The 
letter signed Cumbrien sis, dated 13th Nov., 1771, had renewed 
inquiry. In this letter Junius admitted his personal knowledge of 
the lineaments of the late Prince of Wales, father of George the 
Third, and of the Duke of Cumberland. " Yet I must confess, 
partial as I am to you for the sake of that good prince of whose 
resemblance you carry some cutting traces about you, I could 
wish you did not stand quite so near as you do to the regency and 
crown of England." 

The courtly style of this ironical letter of congratulation could 
hardly fail to direct suspicion to the only person of rank who 
would dare, in such language, to add insult to the disgrace which 
had befallen the royal family by the marriage of the Duke of 
Cumberland with Mrs. Horton. 

That Lord Chesterfield would have no scruples if he wished to 
annoy the King, may be inferred from the following ode, which 

* Sir John Irwine may be considered the most successful pupil of Lord 
Chesterfield's system of education. " His person, manners, and conversa- 
tion," says a modern historian, " were all made for the drawing room. His 
politeness, though somewhat formal, was, nevertheless, natural and capti- 
vating. Perhaps (at least so his enemies asserted) his military talents were 
not equally brilliant with his personal accomplishments, but he had not risen 
the more slowly on that account to the honours or to the eminences of his 
profession. Besides a regiment and a government conferred on him by the 
crown, he had held during several years past the post of Commander-in-Chief 
in Ireland, with very ample appointments and advantages. But no income, 
however large, could suffice for his expenses, which being never restrained 
within any reasonable limits finally involved him in irretrievable difficulties." 

The greatest intimacy subsisted between Lord G. Sackville and Sir John 
Irwine, who owed much of his advancement and success in life to the pro- 
tection of Lionel Duke of Dorset. Lord Sackville's disinterested friendship 
continued to bring Sir John Irwine into parliament for Eastgrinstead after his 
return from Ireland, which took place on the dissolution of Lord North's 
administration, down to his final departure from England; Decorated with the 
order of the Bath, which then conferred much distinction, and of which he 



JUNIUS DISCOVERED IN 1772. 9& 

his lordship is said to have written in the character of the Laureat, 
while the Prince of Wales was alive. In this the family likeness 
alluded to by Junius is still more offensively pointed out : — 

LORD CHESTERFIELD'S ODE. 

FOE COIIET CIBBEE. THE LAUREAT. 

Written when the Prince of Wales was alive. 

I, Colley Cibber, right or wrong, 

Must celebrate this day, 
And tune once more my tuneless song 

And strum the venal lay. 

never failed to display the insignia whenever he went to the House, his 
personal appearance was imposing. Even of a morning, in his greatest 
undress, he wore a small star embroidered on his frock, without which he 
rarely appeared any where, and his travelling hussar cloaks bore the same 
brilliant badge of knighthood. No man knew better the value of external 
figure aided by manner; and Philip Earl of Chesterfield himself had not more 
successfully studied the graces. It was impossible to possess finer manners 
without any affectation or more perfect good breeding. With such pretensions 
of person and of address it cannot surprise that he attained to a great degree 
of favour at St. James's. The Kingt considered and treated Irwine as a person 
whose conversation afforded him peculiar gratification. He often delighted to 
protract the discourse with a courtier whose powers of entertainment, however 
extensive, were always under the restraint of profound respect, and who never 
forgot the character of the prince whom he addressed even for a single moment. 
Irwine, though so fine a gentleman, loved all the indulgences of conviviality, in 
which gratification he never restrained himself. The king, not unacquainted 
with these particulars, having said to him one day at the drawing room, when 
conversing on his common mode of life, "They tell me, Sir John, that you 
love a glass of wine." "Those, sir, who have so reported of me to your 
majesty," answered he, bowing profoundly, " have done me great injustice, 
they should have said a bottle." 

" Sir John Irwine's first wife was a daughter of the celebrated physician 
Sir Edward Barry, who brought him no issue, but he afterwards contracted a 
more obscure matrimonial connection. On his return to England his debts 
became so numerous and his creditors so importunate that though as a member 
of parliament his person still remained secure, he found it impossible to reside 
longer, with comfort, in this country. Quitting, therefore, privately his elegant 
house in Piccadilly, opposite the Green Park, he retired to the continent, and 
landing in France he hired a chateau in the province of Normandy, where his 
military rank secured for him every testimony of respect from the surrounding 
gentry. He, nevertheless, soon experienced such pecuniary difficulties that he 
could nourish no hope of ever revisiting his native country, and he removed over 
the Alps into Italy. I believe he died at Padua, about the month of May, 1788, 
in great obscurity though not in distress. The King, who sincerely regretted 
his departure from England, and who well knew the causes of it, often ex- 
pressed his concern for Sir John Irwine's misfortunes, which he endeavoured to 
alleviate by sending Sir John the sum of a thousand pounds from his privy 
purse, in two separate payments. I know this fact from the late Sir Charles 
Hotham, who was, I think, himself the channel through which his Majesty 
transmitted the first donation of five hundred pounds. — Wraxall's Memoirs, 
Vol. II., p. 362. 

t Geo. III. 



94 JUNIUS DISCOVERED IN 1772. 

Heaven spread thro' all the family 

That broad illustrious glare, 
That shines so flat in every eye 

And makes them all so stare. 

Heaven send the prince of royal race 

A little and horse, 

A little meaning in his face 

And money in his purse. 

And as I* have a son like you 

May he Parnassus rule, 
So shall the crown and laurel too 

Descend from fool to fool. 

Having stated the reasons for believing that the correspon- 
dence of Junius with Lord Barrington led to that writer's 
detection, it remains to add such collateral evidence as may tend 
to confirm the opinion that Junius was at that time discovered. 

"It is commonly reported and believed," says Mr. Taylor, 
" that the King, the late Lord North, and the present Lord 
Grenville were, at some time or other, made acquainted with the 
real name of Junius." According to the following anecdote in 
Wraxall's Memoirs, the King acquired this knowledge in the year 
1772. "I have been assured that the King, riding out in the 
year 1772, accompanied by General Desaguliers, said to him in 
conversation, we know who Junius is and he will write no more. 
The general, who was too good a courtier to congratulate upon 
such a piece of intelligence, contented himself with bowing, and 
the discourse proceeded no further." 

The secret at that time seems to have been confined to the 
King and those who were emphatically called " the King's 
friends," but it appears that it was subsequently imparted to 
those who were admitted to the King's confidence, and among the 
rest to Lord Shelburne. The following curious particulars are 
taken from the New Monthly Magazine for July, 1813 : — 

" Sir Richard Phillips, on calling upon the Marquis of Lans- 
downe, to whom he was personally known, found him in a sick 
chamber suffering under a general breaking up of his constitution, 

* Colley Cibber. 



JUNIUS DISCOVERED IX 1772. 95 

but in his usual flow of spirits, anecdote and conversation. On 
his mentioning Almon's new edition of Junius and that the editor 
had fixed on Boyd as the author, the Marquis exclaimed, I thought 
Almon had known better. I gave him credit for more discern- 
ment. The world, however, will not be deceived by him, for 
there is higher evidence than his opinion. Look at Boyd's other 
writings, He never did write like Junius and never could write like 
Junius. Internal evidence destroys the hypothesis of Almon. Sir 
Richard Phillips then observed to the Marquis that many persons had 
ascribed those letters to his lordship, and that the world at large 
conceived that at least he was not unacquainted with the author. 
The Marquis smiled and said, no, no, I am not equal to Junius. 
I could not be the author ; but the grounds of secrecy are now so 
far removed by death and changes of circumstances that it is 
unnecessary the author of Junius should much longer be unknown. 
The world are curious about him, and I could make a very 
interesting publication on the subject. I knew Junius and I know 
all about the writing and production of those letters. But look, 
said he, at my condition. I don't think I can live a week, my 
legs, my strength tell me so ; but the doctors, who always flatter 
sick men, assure me I am in no immediate danger. They order me 
into the country and I am going there. If I live over the summer, 
which, however, I don't expect, I promise you a very interesting 
pamphlet about Junius. I will put my name to it. I will set 
that question at rest for ever. Sir Richard Phillips then turned the 
conversation to the various persons who had at different times 
been named as Junius, and, after mentioning five or six whose 
pretensions the Marquis destroyed by very cogent reasonings, 
his Lordship closed the conversation by stating that it was of no 
use to pursue the matter further at that time. I'll tell you this 
for your guide generally, said he, Junius has never yet been 
named.* None of the parties ever guessed at as Junius was the 
true Junius. Nobody has ever suspected him. I knew him, and 
knew all about it, and I pledge myself that if these legs will 
permit me, to give you a pamphlet on the subject as soon as I feel 
myself equal to the labour." 

There is no reason to doubt the veracity of Sir R. Phillips in 

* The pamphlet attributing the letters of Junius to Lord Chesterfield was 
not published till some years after the death of Lord Shelburne. 



96 JUNIUS DISCOVERED IN 1772. 

this record of his interview with Lord Shelburne, much less to 
suspect that his lordship boasted of a secret which he did not 
possess. Nevertheless, when his lordship died no trace of those 
materials with which he was prepared to set the question of Junius 
at rest for ever were discovered. 

After the death of Lord Shelburne, Sir R. Phillips pursued his 
inquiries, and wrote to the Marquis of Lansdowne, his successor, 
to know whether he was informed of the person alluded to by 
his father. To this letter Sir Richard received the following 
answer : — - 

" Of the author of Junius I have heard nothing but the 
surmises which have been generally spread respecting Mr. 
Hamilton, Mr. Burke, &c. It is not impossible my father may 
have been acquainted with the fact, but perhaps was under some 
obligation to secrecy, as he never made any communication to me 
upon the subject." 

This obligation to secrecy seems to have been imposed upon 
all those who were at any time numbered among " the King's 
friends." Thus when Lord Grenville obtained that enviable dis- 
tinction, he, probably, also was intrusted with the keeping of 
the secret, though there is good reason to believe that the Gren- 
villes were the first who caught a glimpse of Junius from his 
writings. 

A correspondent in the Gentleman's Magazine (Aug., 1817) 
has given a passage from a letter written by Daniel Wray, Esq., 
to Lord Hardwicke, dated 22nd Nov. 1772 :— 

" The divisions are great in the besiegers' camp, particularly 
between Lord Temple and Camden, about the author of Junius's 
letters." 

On these lines the late Mr. Justice Hardinge remarks : — 
" These few words are of no trivial import, and they wonderfully 
confirm a passage in a conversation between Lord Camden and 
me. He told me that many things in Junius convinced him that 
the materials were prompted by Earl Temple, and he mentioned, 
in particular, a confidential statement which had been made in 
private between Lord Chatham, Lord Temple, and Lord Camden, 
which, from the nature of it, could only have been disclosed by- 
Lord Temple, through Junius, to the public."* 

* Illustrations of the History of the 18th Century, vol. V., p. 146. 



JUNIUS DISCOVERED IN 1772. 97 

In one of the' private letters written by Junius to George 
Grenville, he is said to have promised shortly to discover himself. 
Whether Junius did so during the life-time of Mr. Geo. Grenville, 
or whether Lord Grenville was the first member of the family 
intrusted with the secret, may be known when the suppressed 
correspondence of Junius so carefully preserved in the archives of 
Stowe are laid before the public. 

" Connected with these persons and events," says Mr. Britton, 
" it is of importance to notice the circumstance of Junius's con- 
stant advocacy or approval of Mr. Grenville, and it can hardly be 
doubted that the unpublished letters of Junius, said to be secretly 
preserved at Stowe, in a mysterious box with three seals, would 
afford an explanation of this political friendship. The existence 
of certain letters from Junius to Mr. Grenville has been so fully 
acknowledged by the late Mr. Thos. Grenville, the present Lord 
Nugent, and other members of the family, that there cannot be 
a doubt that such documents are preserved in that splendid 
mansion, although the number of them and the nature of their 
contents has been often mentioned with various circumstances of 
exaggeration and improbability. It is not easy to conjecture the 
reason of their being still withheld from the public. I repeatedly 
applied to the present Duke of Buckingham for an examination 
of them, or for any account which his Grace might think right 
to impart, but was repulsed with a laconic refusal." 

The fact that the Duke of Buckingham did not deny that 
unpublished letters of Junius existed among the manuscripts at 
Stowe, and only refused the examination of them, confirms the 
rumour recorded by Horace Walpole that Junius corresponded 
with Mr. George Grenville at the time that he was engaged in 
writing his public letters, but the reason why these private letters 
to Mr. Grenville have been so long withheld remains a mystery, 
nor does this secrecy appear capable of being accounted for but by 
the conjecture that Junius was too nearly connected with the 
Grenville family, either in friendship or as a member of that 
political faction, to allow the letters to be published; unless, 
indeed, it be admitted that these curious documents are still 
concealed as one of the conditions which induced the King to 
receive the Grenville family again into favour, after his Majesty 
had satisfied himself that the Grenvilles had not encouraged nor 
assisted Junius in the publication of his letters, 

H 



98 JUNIUS DISCOVERED IN 1772. 

The circumstance related by Walpole that Junius promised 
shortly to reveal himself to Mr. George Grenville if the latter 
would desist from making enquiries, proves that although the 
family at Stowe might suspect* who the author was, yet that he 
had not at that time confided his secret to them. 

The whole tenor of Junius' s writings shews that he had no 
direct assistance from the party whose cause he so strenuously 
advocated. " If I were known," says Junius in a private letter to 
Wilkes, " I could no longer be an useful servant to the public." 

" I have faithfully served the public without the possibility of 
a personal advantage. As Junius, I can never expect to be re- 
warded. The secret is too important to be committed to any 
great man's discretion. If views of interest or ambition could 
tempt me to betray my own secret, how could I flatter myself that 
the man I trusted, would not act upon the same principle, and 
sacrifice me at once to the King's curiosity and resentment." 

" Besides the fallibility natural to us all, no man writes under 
so many disadvantages as I do. I cannot consult the learned. I 
cannot directly ask the opinion of my acquaintance, and in the 
newspapers I never am assisted." Even in his public letters, 
Junius alludes to his isolated condition. 

" To write for profit without taxing the press ; to write for 
fame, and to be unknown ; to support the intrigues of faction, and 
to be disowned as a dangerous auxiliary by every party in the 
kingdom, are contradictions which the minister must reconcile 
before I forfeit my credit with the public. I may quit the service, 
but it would be absurd to suspect me of desertion." 

The bearing of Junius's political views from his first miscella- 
neous letter in 1767, to the death of Mr. Grenville in 1770, proves 
that the object of the writer was to establish a Grenville ministry. 
He laboured to detach from the Duke of Grafton's party, those 
few whom he honoured with, his esteem, and he succeeded with 
Granby, Camden, Huntington, and some few others ; but his great 
triumph was when Lord Chatham "threw away the scabbard." 
It was then he wrote exultingly to his printer, " We shall con- 

* If Lord Temple, Lord Lyttleton, and Mr. George Grenville suspected that 
their friend Lord Chesterfield was Junius, many reasons might induce them to 
keep the secret from the King. Horace Walpole says that George Grenville 
" made his peace with the Court before his death." Mr. Grenville died on the 
13th Nov., 1770. 



JUNIUS DISCOVERED IN 1772. 99 

quer them at last." How transitory his hopes were, is shown hy 
the despondency of his last letter. Whether Junius became the 
scape goat of his friends, may be known if ever that portion of 
the Stowe manuscripts shall be permitted to appear. 

The circumstances which have led to a suspicion that Junius 
had one or more associates in his labours, are the allusions that he 
sometimes makes in his private letters to Woodfall. On one occa- 
sion he speaks of " People about him, whom he would not wish to 
contradict, and who would rather see Junius in the papers ever so 
improperly than not at all." This does not necessarily imply that 
the persons about him knew that he was Junius or influenced him 
in writing the letter to which he refers. It was the best apology 
which he could think of for the folly he had committed — for Junius 
had placed himself in the predicament of Dr. Caius, by accepting 
Mr. WoodfalTs correspondent Junia for his bride. But he dis- 
covered the fair Junia to be no other than the facetious Mr. 
Caleb Whitefoord, and the wary Junius was in this instance fairly 
" cozened." 

The gallantry displayed by Junius in this curious letter cannot 
fail to remind the reader of Lord Chesterfield, but to remove any 
doubt on this subject let the last sentence of Junius's letter to 
Junia (almost the only decent one), be compared with the instruc- 
tion his lordship has given in one of his letters to his son, in which 
he acknowledges the " Divine right of Beauty" in the very terms 
here made use of by Junius : — 

Junius. Chesterfield. 

It is true I am a strenuous advocate You will find in every groupe of 

for liberty and property, but when company two principal figures, viz., 

these rights are invaded by a pretty the fine lady and the fine gentleman, 

woman, I am neither able to defend The lady looks upon her empire as 

my money nor my freedom. The Di- founded upon the Divine right of 

vine right of Beauty is the only one an Beauty (and full as good a divine right 

Englishman ought to acknowledge, it is as any King, Emperor, or Pope 

and a pretty woman the only tyrant can pretend to), she requires and 

he is not authorised to resist. — Vol. commonly meets with unlimited pas- 

III., p. 218. sive obedience. — Letters, vol. I., p. 215. 

The death of Lord Chesterfield recalled the memory of one who 
had long been lost to the world in the seclusion of Chesterfield 
House. Portions of his correspondence were immediately collected 
and offered to the public, but no sooner was this known than an 
alarm spread through the court, and measures were instantly taken 
to suppress the publication. 
h 2 



100 JTJXIUS DISCOVERED IX 1772. 

It is not the intention of the writer to heighten the importance 
of the facts relating to these transactions, nor to dwell long on their 
singularity. It, may, however, be necessary to observe that if the 
authorities are not in every instance satisfactory, they are the best 
that can be adduced after a laborious research. But even this ex- 
treme difficulty in obtaining authentic information relative to the 
life and writings of Lord Chesterfield is, in itself, a remarkable cir- 
cumstance, and cannot be over-ruled by the plausible pretext that 
his lordship's pen was too licentious, both on politics and morals, to 
permit his works to meet the eye of the public, for the most objec- 
tionable were allowed to appear, sanctioned by the patronage of 
Lord North, at that time the confidential servant of the Crown. 

We shall now proceed to lay before the reader the following facts. 
The first, and perhaps the most important, is the early suppression 
of Lord Chesterfield's papers : — 

" When the news of the publication of the posthumous letters 
of Lord Chesterfield reached the ears of the executors they were 
alarmed because they contained some free opinions of the men and 
manners of the present age. The Court immediately influenced 
itself for a suppression, though Mr. Dodsley had printed them off 
and sold a proportionate share to Mr. Faulkner, of Dublin ; but 
notwithstanding these engagements, and the great expenses they 
had been at, Lord Mansfield generously assured them they should 
have an injunction, and that he would suppress the epistles with 
little trouble. While this business was contending, Mrs. Eugenia 
Stanhope gave information of many more papers in her possession 
containing the characters of all the principal men who had lived in 
his Lordship's time, civil, military, and naval. This new alarm 
brought the ministers to terms, and therefore they promised if 
she would give up the characters they would not impede 
the publication of the letters, by which means the world became 
possessed of them, though they lost a composition more sacred to 
this country than the leaves of the Sibyls to the Roman people 
To such little arts are our mighty men of the Court driven, that they 



* It has been affirmed that Lord Chesterfield purchased from Mrs. Stanhope 
the originals of the letters to his son, but that Mrs. Stanhope kept copies, and 
that after his Lordship's death, she sold the manuscripts for fifteen hundred 
guineas. In the preface to the first edition it is stated that the letters were 
published from the originals then in the hands of Mrs. Stanhope. 



Junius discovered in 1772. 101 

are afraid to see their own deformed faces in a looking-glass." — 
London Mag., Dec, 1774, vol. XLIF.,p. 590. 

By this compromise with the ministers, Mrs. Stanhope was 
allowed to give to the world the most licentious of his lord- 
ship's writings, and thus afforded the enemies of Lord Chesterfield 
an opportunity of vilifying his lordship's memory, and thereby pre- 
vented, in a great measure, further inquiry as to the fate of those 
papers that would have done honour to his character as a states- 
man and a writer. 

Among the motley crew of moralists, divines, and sycophants 
which the first edition of Lord Chesterfield's letters called forth, 
Doctor Johnson and General Burgoyne were pre-eminently distin- 
guished. Both have received their reward from a generous and 
indignant public, but unfortunately for the fame of Lord Chester- 
field, the chief offender triumphed during his life time, nor was 
it till the recent edition of Lord Chesterfield's works that the con- 
duct of Johnson towards his noble patron was exhibited in a 
proper light. Junius, indeed, had forestalled the one, and if pru- 
dence had not restrained that writer, Doctor Johnson would 
doubtless have received such an answer to his pamphlet on the 
Convention, that all his learning would scarcely have protected him 
against the envenomed shafts of his opponents. 

As there is no proof that the discovery of Junius was commu- 
nicated to Dr. Johnson, nor that he was instigated by the Court 
to defame Lord Chesterfield, we shall here confine ourselves to the 
conduct of General Burgoyne immediately after the death of 
Lord Chesterfield. 

In the year 1774 the General distinguished himself as an 
author by publishing " A Dramatic Entertainment" in which the 
character of Lord Chesterfield was attempted to be traduced. The 
reception his satire met with from the public is thus noticed by a 
contemporary.^ 

" Mr. Foote hath lavishly ridiculed his Lordship's graces and, the 
author of the Maid of the Oaksj coarsely introduced a jest 
against them which the honest people warmly disapproved and 
poignantly hissed. It may become general officers to write, but 

* See Quarterly Review No. CLIT., pp 476-480. 

t The Maid of the Oaks was performed at Drury Lane, Nov. 5, 1774. 



102 JUNIUS DISCOVERED IN 1772. 

few of our military town wits have prowess and ability even to 
engage with Chesterfield dead." 

Circumstances favour the supposition that General Burgoyne's 
impotent attack on the character of Lord Chesterfield was one of 
the results of the discovery that his lordship was the author of the 
letters of Junius. 

1st. The time that this farce was contemplated and composed, 
coincides with the date that has been- given of the discovery of 
Junius.* 

2nd. General Burgoyne was one of the King's friends, and 
had been pointedly abused by Junius, and therefore as a fellow 
sufferer, might have been entrusted with the secret. 

But Junius himself had before given sufficient grounds to excite 
suspicion. The transaction in which General Burgoyne was so 
conspicuous a character, will furnish the best evidence on this point. 

In 1769 Junius chose, for the subject of a new attack upon 
the Duke of Grafton, the sale of a patent place in the customs 
at Exeter, given by his grace to General Burgoyne, and afterwards 
sold by that gentleman to Mr. Hine. There does not appear to 
have been anything extraordinary in this transaction, and Junius 
was ultimately compelled to confess that the Duke of Grafton only 
connived at the transfer, that General Burgoyne might be reim- 
bursed indirectly for his services at Preston. 

" Come forward thou virtuous minister," says Junius, " and tell 
the world by what interest Mr. Hine has been recommended to so 



* In a review of this piece, it is said that the performance " was rather 
but coolly received." Yet the expense of the exhibition does not seem to have 
been spared, and Mr. Garrick had the credit of the outlay; he also generously 
assisted the author in revising the piece, and wrote the prologue. "The 
attention," says our reviewer, " which Mr. Garrick has shown to the deco- 
rating of the piece, is a convincing proof that he never spares either labour or 
expense where there is a likelihood of promoting the pleasure of the public. 
It is said that the scenery only, which has been painted on purpose for the Maid 
of the Oaks, cost £1,500. This is a prodigious sum, yet it will not appear the 
least extravagant to anybody who sees it. The landscapes of Claude are 
scarcely equal to some of the views exhibited, and if nothing beyond the 
merit of the paintings was held forth to attract the town, we should not be 
surprised at its bringing twenty crowded audiences. Mr. Garrick's care, how- 
ever, has not been confined to the scenery, it has extended to the minutest 
object that could increase either the beauty or magnificence of the entertain- 
ment." The zeal which Messrs. Garrick and Foote at this time displayed in 
traducing the character of Lord Chesterfield, is, to say the least, a curious 
circumstance. 



JUNIUS DISCOVERED IN 1772. 103 

extraordinary a mark of his Majesty's favour — what was the price* 
of the patent he has bought and to what honourable purpose the 
purchase money has been applied. Nothing less than many thou- 
sands could pay Colonel Burgoyne's expenses at Preston. Do you 
dare to prosecute such a creature as Vaughan, while you are basely 
setting up the royal patronage to auction. Do you dare to com- 
plain of an attack upon your honour, while you are selling the 
favours of the crown to raise a fund for corrupting the morals 
of the people? And do you think it possible that such 
enormities should escape without impeachment ? It is, indeed, 
highly your interest to maintain the present House of Commons. 
Having sold the nation to you in gross they will undoubtedly pro- 
tect you in the detail, for while they patronise your crimes they 
feel for their own." 

In the next letter General Burgoyne is personally attacked, and 
the allusions were of a nature that could hardly fail to create sus- 
picion as to the writer. 

" I thank God there is not in human nature a degree of im- 
pudence daring enough to deny the charge I have fixed upon 
you. Your courteous secretary, your confidential architect, are 
silent as the grave. Even Mr. Rigby's countenance fails him ; 
he violates his second nature, and blushes whenever he speaks 
of you. Perhaps the noble Colonel himself will relieve you. 
No man is more tender of his reputation. He is not only nice, 
but perfectly sore in everything that touches his honour. If 
any man, for example, were to accuse him of taking his stand 
at a gaming table, and watching with the soberest attention for 



* These high-minded sentiments have induced some to believe that the 
character of Lord Chesterfield is at variance with that of Junius, but a recent 
record of his lordship's principles (ivritten about the time this transaction 
occurred) will surely remove this ill founded prejudice. Is there a passage in 
the writings of the lofty Junius in any respect superior to the following ex- 
tract from Lord Chesterfield's advice to his godson and heir? — 

" If you should ever fill a great station at Court, take care above all things 
to keep your hands clean and pure from the infamous vice of corruption, — a 
vice so infamous that it degrades even the other vices that may accompany it; 
accept no present whatever ; let your character in that respect be transparent, 
and without the least speck, for as avarice is the vilest and dirtiest vice in 
private, corruption is so in public life. I call corruption the taking of a sixpence 
more than the just and known salary of your employment under any pretence 
whatsoever; use what power and credit you may have at Court in the service 
of merit rather than of kindred, and not to get pensions and reversions for 
yourself or your family, for I call that also, what it really is, scandalous pollu- 
tion, though of late it has been so frequent that it has almost lost its name." 



104 JUNIUS DISCOVEKED IN 1772. 

a fair opportunity of engaging a drunken young nobleman at 
piquet, he would undoubtedly consider it as an infamous asper- 
sion upon his character, and resent it like a man of honour. Ac- 
quitting him, therefore, of drawing a regular and splendid sub- 
sistence from any unworthy practices either in his own house or 
elsewhere, let me ask your Grace for what military merits you 
have been pleased to reward him with a military government." 

The fact referred to in this passage might have been related 
by other frequenters of the gaming table, as well as by Lord 
Chesterfield; but the conduct of General Burgoyne after the 
death of Lord Chesterfield is strong presumptive evidence that 
his lordship was suspected. Nor is this the only instance in 
which Junius is connected with the character of Dupely^ in the 
" Maid of the Oaks." In a letter dated 22nd June, 1771, Junius 
says " Make haste, my lord, another, patent applied in time may 
keep the Oaks in the family. If not, Burnham Wood, I fear, 
must come to the macaroni.'" 

It was probably this short sentence that confirmed the suspi- 
cions of General Burgoyne, and induced him to caricature Lord 
Chesterfield as a macaroni in his dramatic entertainment, " The 
Maid or the Oaks." 

But Junius has given more than this one instance of his 
intimacy with the habits of the frequenters of the gaming table. 
In his first letter to the Duke of Grafton (23rd April, 1768), he 
admits that Chartres now and then deviated into honesty. 

As this declaration is not borne out by the only record which 



* The character of Dupely in the Maid of the Oaks, is a young man sup- 
posed to have been educated on the plan recommended by Lord Chesterfield 
in his letters to his son. He is thus described at the opening of the piece: — 

Lady Bab.— But hark ! I hear the pastorals beginning ; Lord, I hope I 
shall find a shepherd. 

Oldworth. — The most elegant in the world — Mr. Dupely, Sir Harry's friend. 

Lady Bab. — You don't mean Charles Dupely, who has been so long abroad. 

Sir Harry. — The very same ; but I am afraid he will never do, he is but 
half a macaroni. 

Lady Bab. — And very possibly the worst half. It is a vulgar idea to think 
that foreign accomplishments fit a man for the polite world. 

Sir Harry. — Lady Bab, I wish you would undertake him ; he seems to have 
contracted all the common-place affectations of travel, and thinks himself quite 
an overmatch for the fair sex, of whom his opinion is as ill founded as it is 
degrading. 

Lady Bab. — Oh, that is his turn. What, he has been studying some late 
posthumous letters — 'twould be delightful to make a fool of such a fellow. 

Act 1, Scene 1. 



JUNIUS DISCOVERED IN 1772. 105 

we have of the Colonel's undeviating course of vice and profligacy * 
it would imply a personal acquaintance with that abandoned cha- 
racter, and if this be admitted it may give some clue to ascertain 
the age of Junius, for Colonel Chartres (when Junius made this 
assertion) had been dead upwards of thirty-seven years. 

In addition to the Epitaph written by Dr. Arbuthnot, we have 
a sketch of the notorious Colonel in Lord Chesterfield's corre- 
spondence : — 

" Colonel Chartres (whom you have certainly heard of, who 
was, I believe, the most notorious blasted rascal in the world, and 
who had, by all sorts of crime, amassed immense wealth) was so 
sensible of the disadvantage of a bad character, that I heard him 
once say> in his impudent profligate manner, that though he 
would not give one farthing for virtue he would give ten thousand 
pounds for a character, because he could get a hundred thousand 
pounds by it, whereas he was so blasted that he had no longer an 
opportunity of cheating people. "f 

This conversation probably occurred at the gaming table, where 
only, it is presumed, Lord Chesterfield recognized so disreputable 
a character. During Lord Chesterfield's stay in England in 1730, 
he assisted at the council in which the report was made of Colonel 
Chartres' trial and condemnation at the Old Bailey for a rape he 
had not committed. His pardon was voted unanimously. The 
recollection of this circumstance seems to have been present in the 
mind of Junius when he wrote his first letter to the Duke of 
Grafton : — , 

" Chartres now and then deviated into honesty, and even Lord 

* Here continueth to rot 

The body of Francis Chartres, 

Who, with an indefatigable constancy 

And inimitable uniformity of life, 

Persisted, 

In spite of age and infirmities, 

In the practice of every human vice, 

Excepting prodigality and hypocrisy; 

His insatiable avarice exempting him from the first, 

His matchless impudence from the second. 
Nor was he more singular in the undeviating pravity 
Of his manners than successful 

In accumulating wealth. 

Arbuthnot. 

t Letter to his Son, 1750. 

Colonel Chartres is said to have borrowed thirty thousand pounds in half 
crowns from his acquaintance. 



106 JUNIUS DISCOVERED IN 1772. 

Bute prefers the simplicity of seduction to the poignant pleasures 
of a rape''' 

The next instance which Junius gave of his intimacy with the 
habits of persons of this description is, perhaps, no less remark- 
able. It occurs in a letter to Lord Hillsborough, dated 20th 
Sept., 1768:— 

" My Lord, — Permit me to have the honour of introducing you 
to a very amiable and valuable acquaintance. Mr. Ford is the 
gentleman I mean. Your lordship will forgive the timidity and 
bashfulness of his first address, and considering your quality 
condescend to make him some advances. There is a similarity in 
your circumstances, to say nothing of your virtues and under- 
standing, which may lay the foundation of a solid friendship 
between you for the rest of your lives. Undoubtedly you are not 
quite unacquainted with a character on which you appear to have 
formed your own. His case was singular, my Lord, and cannot 
fail of exciting emotions of sympathy in your lordship's breast. 
This worthy man found himself exposed to a most malicious pro- 
secution for perjury. A profligate jury found him guilty, and a 
cruel judge pronounced his sentence of imprisonment, pillory, and 
transportation. His mind was a good deal distressed in the course 
of this affair, (for he, too, is a man of delicate feelings), but his 
character, like yours, was above the reach of malice. Not to 
keep your lordship any longer in pain, I have the pleasure of 
telling you that when law and justice nad done their worst, a lady 
in whom he seldom places any confidence at cards, was generous 
enough to stand his friend. Fortune discovered a flaw in the 
indictment; and now, my lord, in spite of an iniquitous prose- 
cution, in spite of conviction and sentence, he stands as fair in 
his reputation as ever he did." 

Whether this was the Mr. Ford who was once on terms of 
questionable intimacy with Lord Chesterfield has not been ascer- 
tained, but the companion of Lord Hillsborough was, probably, 
the gentleman to whom Junius refers in one of his earlier letters 
as " The reverend instrument of the Duke of Grafton," who was 
acquitted for his open and wicked interference in elections.*' 

* When Parson Ford, an infamous fellow but of much offhand and con- 
versational wit, besought Lord Chesterfield to carry him over with him as his 
chaplain when his lordship went ambassador to Holland, he said to him, " I 



JUNIUS DISCOVERED IN 1772. 107 

Among the miscellaneous letters of Junius there is one con- 
taining an account of Lord Gower's election to the order of the 
Garter. It is signed A.B., dated 16th Feb., 1771 :*— 

" Sir, — It is proper the public should be informed that upon 
Lord Gower's election to be a knight of the Garter, there were 
but four knights present besides the sovereign, and the Duke of 
Gloucester was lugged in to be one of them. He intreated, he 
begged, he implored, but all to no purpose. Poor Peg Trentham 
was forced to submit to an election which by the statutes of the 
order is void. Ashmole informs us 7 that to make up a complete 
chapter of election there should be assembled six knights com- 
panions, at least, beside the sovereign, the due observance of 
which hath been so strict formerly that elections have been 
deferred where chapters have been deficient in number. 

The present way of electing Peg Trentham is for two reasons 
remarkable. It shows first, in what profound contempt poor 
Peggy is universally held ; and, secondly, the pious resolution of 
our gracious Sovereign to introduce a new system of arithmetic. 
In the decision of the Middlesex election it was resolved that 296 
were more than 1,143, and now we are told that four are equal 
to six. This puts me in mind of Lord March's election to the 
Coterie. All the balls were black; but the returning officer, 
George Selwyn, thought proper to swear he was duly elected, 
and he took his seat accordingly. — A. B. 

Lord Chesterfield was elected a Knight of the Garter in 1730, 
and was installed on the 18th June with the Duke of Cumber- 
land, and at the expense of his Sovereign, who was present at the 
ceremony. This honour, it is said, was the supreme object of his 
lordship's wishes, and it is fair to presume that in after life he 
would be jealous of any infringement of the statutes of the order. 
The eclat that attended his own installation is strongly contrasted 

would certainly take you if you had one vice more than you already have.' 
" My Lord," said Ford, "I thought I should never be reproached for any defi- 
ciency in that way." " True," replied the Earl, " but if you had still one 
more almost worse than all the rest put together, it would hinder those from 
giving scandal." Lord Chesterfield, it appears, knew that Ford wanted that 
useful vice Hypocrisy. 

* The fact of Lord Gower's election was related in the Public Advertiser the 
day previous to the insertion of the above letter. This paragraph is also sup- 
posed to have come from the same hand, and carries with it strong features of 
Lord Chesterfield's ironical style of writing. — See Woodfall's Junius, Vol. III., 
p. 339. 



108 JUNIUS DISCOVERED IN 1772. 

with the circumstances of Lord Gower's election. That Junius 
should have noticed the circumstance in the manner he has done, 
unless he had been one of the order, is unlikely ; and if this be 
admitted, it brings the identity of Junius within a very narrow 
compass, and will exclude nearly every one who has been sus- 
pected as having been the writer of the letters. 

But there is another circumstance also alluded to in this letter 
that bears hard upon Lord Chesterfield as the author. The 
manner in which Lord March was " smuggled" into the sanctum 
sanctorum at White's, indicates that the writer, as a member of 
that celebrated coterie, was annoyed at the introduction of Lord 
March* 

It appears by the Selwyn correspondence, that Lord March 
had been rejected at White's in the spring, 1765,f but by some 
means, the wish of his friend, George Selwyn, was accomplished, 
for in a letter dated from White's in October, Lord March writes 
— " I am in haste to return to the coterie, having left them to write 
to Newmarket, and to send you this scrawl. \ 

It is scarcely necessary to remark that the three persons named 
in this letter were not friends of Lord Chesterfield, but their pri- 
vate character must have been well known to his lordship. Lord 
Gower made his debut in public life at the time Lord Chesterfield 
came into office in 1745. 

But to return to the subject of the suppression of Lord Ches- 
terfield's manuscripts, we would direct the attention of the reader 
to the review of the late edition of Lord Chesterfield's corres- 
pondence. The writer, after paying a just encomium on the dili- 
gence of the noble editor, expresses his surprise and disappoint- 
ment at the absence of novelty in the collection. 

" We are, however, we must confess, somewhat surprised that 
his diligence has not brought out more of absolute novelty in this 

* Lord Chesterfield might be considered the father at White's at the time 
the letters of Junius were written. 

f Our friend (Lord March) goes on just as usual, opposing and disputing 
with every person every night at the Old Club, to the no small surprise of some 
of the new members, who have had perseverance enough to be duly elected, 
viz., Topham Beauclerk, James Walters, Sir George Pigot, and Dick Vernon. 
On finding them in such good humour, I started Lord March, but they swore 
he was now a foreigner, and rejected him. — Williams to George Selwyn Corres- 
i, vol. 1, p. 361. 

Selwyn and his contemporaries, vol. I., p. 414. 



JUNIUS DISCOVERED IN 1772. 109 

way. Mr. George Berkeley, we know, had kept carefully some 
specimens of Chesterfield's epistolary vein, even of the boyish 
Cambridge time. The writer obtained extraordinary repute in his 
earliest manhood, and he lived to the age of eighty in the enjoy- 
ment of all but unrivalled admiration. With such social connec- 
tions and predilections— such literary habits and facility, his cor- 
respondence must have been vast ; and even now we can have seen 
but a very insignificant fragment of it. Where is it ? Even 
in those comparatively careless days, who could have burnt a letter 
of Lord Chesterfield's ? We have no doubt that in the reposito- 
ries of those who represent his various political and fashionable 
associates, innumerable relics must still be lying disinterred. Lord 
Mahon tells us that he enquired in vain at Bretby, but it was not 
there that we should have expected to find much. Lord Chester- 
field was the last man to keep copies of his own letters ; we 
should greatly doubt whether he ever wrote anything twice over in 
his life. But we are not told of any researches in places which we 
should have conjectured to have been among the likeliest for dis- 
covery. At Castle Ashby, for instance, at Stanmer, at Clumber, 
or Longleat, or Hagley. Among his closest connections was that 
with Mr. Waller, the last male representative of the poet himself, 
a man of extensive acquirements, an elegant scholar, through life 
a student. Where are the Waller MSS. ? Has Mr. Upcott no 
information of their fate ? Then is there not reason to suppose that 
a very considerable body of Chesterfield's papers exist in the Castle 
of Dublin. The Earl's brief vice-Royalty is, on the whole, the 
most honourable feature in his history. Some inedited letters or 
despatches of that date were quoted with effect a few years ago in 
the House of Lords by the Marquis of Normanby, but though the 
noble editor's attention was thus directed to the point, the result is 
nil. He states that his applications were received with the anti3i- 
pated courtesy both of Lord Normanby and by the present Lord- 
Lieutenant, but not in either case were the desired documents 
placed at his disposal. — Quarterly Review. 

The Lyttleton correspondence fails to furnish any particulars 
of Lord Chesterfield during the last thirty years of the strict 
intimacy which subsisted between those distinguished charac- 
ters. Is it not extraordinary that among the Hagley Papers no 
letter from Lord Chesterfield could be found of later date than 



110 JUNIUS DISCOVERED IN 1772. 

the breaking up of the party who opposed Sir Robert Walpole ? 
Among Lord Chesterfield's friends there was none for whom 
he entertained a more sincere regard than for Lord Lyttleton.* 

The volumes of the Chatham Correspondence contain fac 
similes of the handwriting of almost every distinguished character 
named in the letters, except that of Lord Chesterfield, yet that 
was one which would have been most interesting to the public 
from its extreme rarity. Where are his Lordship's letters to Lord 
Chatham? Their correspondence must have been voluminous. 
Why have these also been suppressed ? The editors of the Chat- 
ham Letters, it is true, have taken some pains to convince the 
public that Sir Philip Francis was the writer of the letters of 
Junius. 

Lord Hervey, in his Memoirs, refers the reader to an elaborate 
letter written by Lord Chesterfield to George II., in 1732, when 
his Lordship was deprived of his employment at Court, in conse- 
quence of his opposition to the memorable excise scheme. This 
letter, the editor states, had been abstracted from the manuscript 
memoirs. That it would have appeared in no way inferior to the 
celebrated letter of Junius to the King, will not be doubted by 
those who remember the spirit in which Lord Chesterfield surren- 
dered his office. His Lordship refused to resign, and compelled 
the King to send for the white staff which he held as Steward of 
the Household. He also advised his friends, Lords Cobham, Stair, 
and Westmoreland, "/or the sake of the cause to put the minister 
to the trouble of taking away their places." The letter referred 
to in Hervey's Memoirs was written two days after Lord Chester- 
field had been deprived of his place at Court. It is said his Lord- 
ship expressed in this letter his readiness to sacrifice everything 
for the King's service, except his honour and conscience. This 
letter, says Dr. Maty, certainly did not lessen the resentment of a 
Monarch who, by his contemporaries, is allowed to have been no 
dissembler. Lord Chesterfield took the first opportunity of going 
to Court, but he was so far from being graciously received that, 
contrary to his former intentions, he never again appeared in the 
Royal presence till the necessity of the times occasioned his recal." 
Although Lord Chesterfield absented himself from Court, he 

* Lord Lyttleton's integrity and judgment are unquestionable. — Junius. 



JTJXIUS DISCOVERED IN 1772. Ill 

could not forbear indulging his propensity of addressing his Sove- 
reign personally in the language of remonstrance. In the vindi- 
cation of the Hanover Troops, we find a paragraph on this subject, 
which will remind the reader of similar passages in the writings of 
Junius : — 

" Such a one will be glad to be armed with these arguments to 
combat the natural and blameless partiality of his prince. When 
he can say, " Sir, these things are now too well understood, and 
too warmly entertained by the whole nation, to be either attempted 
or compassed. They can no longer be made to believe that a 
squabble in Lower Saxony interests Great Britain, nor be prevailed 
upon to take part in it. Will you lose the affections and exhaust 
the strength of your kingdom for the addition of a Bailiage to 
your Electorate." 

But George II. was not the only monarch whom Lord Ches- 
terfield had the boldness to offend by personal remonstrance. 
When his Lordship resigned his place as Captain of the Yeomen 
of the Guard in 1725, he addressed the King in a manner that 
caused no little astonishment at the time. The only record we 
have of this speech is contained in a letter from Lady Hervey 
to Mrs. Howard — 

" We have heard great fame of a speech Lord Stanhope made 
to the King, but almost every one has heard it in a different way. 
I fancy I have the truest account of it. We expect to see it in 
print." 

" This speech," says the editor of the Suffolk Letters, " has 
not reached posterity. It was, probably, some ebullition of party 
spirit." 

The probability is that it related to the conduct of George I. 
towards the heir apparent who had just then been excluded from 
the regency by his father. Lord Chesterfield was shortly after 
appointed one of the Lords of the Bedchamber to the Prince of 
Wales. 

A similar accident to that which happened to Lord Hervey's 
manuscripts, occurred to a portion of Lady Hervey's correspondence 
which unfortunately comprised a period when Lord Chesterfield's 
name would probably have been often mentioned with applause. 
From the 25th April, 1745, to 24th Oct., 1747, her ladyship's letters 
to Mr. Morris are said to have been lost! This accident has deprived 



112 JUNIUS DISCOVERED IN 1772. 

the public of Lady Hervey's letters during the Scotch rebellion, 
and the time that Lord Chesterfield was viceroy of Ireland. 

After a diligent search among the manuscripts in the British 
Museum only one solitary letter has been found in the handwriting 
of Lord Chesterfield. This is the more remarkable since his lord- 
ship's biographer was the principal librarian of that institution, and 
it might be presumed that some original documents in the hand- 
writing of Lord Chesterfield would have been deposited there. 

The last circumstance to which we shall allude is, perhaps, the 
most extraordinary instance of suppressing manuscripts in connec- 
tion with the name of Lord Chesterfield. 

" It is said that it was not till after the publication of Lord 
Chesterfield's letters that a late prelate put a codicil to his will en- 
joining his executor to bury all manuscripts which should be found 
in his bureau in the coffin with him." 

" The manuscripts that were put into the late Bishop of Exe- 
ter's coffin with his corpse, according to his lordship's order, were 
not sermons as has been asserted, but a collection of letters he had 
received in the course of his life from some distinguished person- 
ages both abroad and at home." — London Magazine, Jan., 1778. 

Though the burying of these manuscripts does not at first sight 
seem to bear any reference to Junius, yet, if we may be allowed to 
hazard a conjecture as to the subject of some of the buried manu- 
scripts, it may be presumed that they related to a circumstance in 
which Junius is now supposed to have been concerned. 

The pamphlet published in 1761, reflecting on the conduct of 
Lord Townshend is generally believed to be the production of Junius. 
The encouragement given to its circulation by Lord Albemarle 
caused a challenge to be sent by Lord Townshend. The parties 
met, but the duel was prevented by the interference of the civil au- 
thorities who had privately received notice of the hostile meeting. 
Horace Walpole says that the king " commissioned some of the 
matrons of the army to examine the affair and make it up." It is 
probable that the Bishop of Exeter (Lord Albemarle's brother) 
was included in this secret commission, and that the papers and cor- 
respondence relating to it were intrusted to his keeping. Nothing, 
however, is known as to the result of this private inquiry, but as 
Lord Townshend took no further steps to vindicate his honour, it 
may be presumed that Lord Albemarle acquitted himself of any 



JUNIUS DISCOVERED IN 1772. 113 

share in the libel beyond the encouragement he might have given 
to its circulation. 

But if there was a desire on the part of the king to suppress 
the works of Lord Chesterfield, the letters enclosed in the Bishop 
of Exeter's coffin might also include the correspondence of Lord 
Chesterfield with the family of Albemarle, with whom his lordship 
had for so many years been on terms of intimacy and friendship. 

The remaining facts in favour of the supposition that Lord 
Chesterfield was discovered to be the author of the letters of Junius 
consist chiefly of the suppression of every circumstance connected 
with the last few years of his lordship's life. Although we have 
memoirs and correspondence in abundance, written by the contem- 
poraries of Lord Chesterfield, yet we search in vain for an impartial 
review of his character, or any the slightest record of the manner 
in which he occupied his time while the letters of Junius were 
written. Even Lord Chesterfield's death is passed over by the 
courtly writers of that day without one encomium on his merit, or, 
what perhaps is still more extraordinary, without one slanderous 
anecdote to tarnish the lustre of his name. An ominous silence 
seems to have been preserved by Walpole, Chatham, Burke, and 
even the Grenville family, on an event that might reasonably be 
supposed to have interested every circle of fashionable life.* The 
Court Guide itself, either accidentally or by design, falsified the date 
of his lordship's death, and has confounded that memorable event 
with an act of his lordship's life which took place some few months 
before. This error has convinced many that Lord Chesterfield 
could not have been Junius, but why all this effort to suppress the 
memory of so great a man and to leave posterity only the shadow 
op a mighty name ? We are unable to account for it upon any 
other grounds than that the king and his ministers would have it so. 



* See Debrett's Peerage, which states that Lord Chesterfield died on the 
4th June, 1772. 



the end. 



PRINTED BY BAXTER AND SON, HIGH STREET, LEWES. 



FACSIMILE 



JUNIUS, 
LORD CHESTERFIELD, 

AND 

MRS. C. DAYROLLES. 

SHEWING THAT THE WIFE OF MR. SOLOMON DAYROLLES WAS THE 
AMANUENSIS EMPLOYED IN COPYING THE LETTERS OF 
JUNIUS FOR THE PRINTER. 

WITH 

A POSTSCRIPT TO THE FIRST ESSAY ON JUNIUS 
AND HIS WORKS. 



BY 

WILLIAM CRAMP, 

AUTHOR OF 

"THE PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE." 



LONDON : 

HOPE & CO., 16, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET, 

1851, 



POSTSCRIPT 



FIRST ESSAY ON JUNIUS AND HIS WORKS. 



Since the publication of the Preliminary Essay on 
" Junius and his Works," an opportunity has been 
kindly granted by Mr. H. D. Woodfall to examine 
the autographs of Junius, with the view of tracing 
in them the handwriting of Lord Chesterfield. 
Upon close inspection, however, it was found that 
the handwriting of Lord Chesterfield differed mate- 
rially from the autographs of Junius, and especially 
in the formation of certain letters, as k andj — the 
down stroke of the k being either carried below the 
line, or terminated by a curve or dot ; and, as 
regards the small j, it seems never to have been 
used by Lord Chesterfield. Even when it occurred 
in the middle of a word, his lordship used the 
capital «/", or something like it : as a substitute for the 
small dotted j. 

These singular deviations from the autograph of 
Junius, were in themselves sufficient to decide 
that the autographs in the possession of Mr. 
H. D. Woodfall were not the handwriting of Lord 
Chesterfield. 

It was necessary, therefore, in order to complete 
the evidence that Lord Chesterfield was the author 
of the letters, to seek for an amanuensis among 
those who were at that time on terms of close 
intimacy with his lordship. Some letters of Mr. 
Dayrolles were examined, but on comparing them 
with the autographs of Junius, not the slightest 
resemblance could be traced. Fortunately, how- 
ever, two letters were found in the handwriting 



of Mrs. Dayrolles, and although dated so far back 
as the year 1760, they bore unequivocal marks of 
identity when compared with the autographs of 
Junius. The striking resemblance was at once 
recognised by the skilful artist who had just before 
decided that the handwriting of Lord Chesterfield 
was not the autograph of Junius. 

But before we enter upon an examination of 
Mrs. Dayrolles' handwriting it will be advisable, 
perhaps, briefly to shew in what relation Mr. Day- 
rolles stood, in reference to Lord Chesterfield, at 
the time the letters of Junius were written. 

Mr. Solomon Dayrolles had been attached to 
Lord Chesterfield from his earliest infancy, by the 
honour conferred upon him in having Lord Chester- 
field as his godfather. This arose from the friend- 
ship which Lord Chesterfield had for Mr. James 
Dayrolles, the uncle of Mr. S. Dayrolles. The 
strong affection which Lord Chesterfield had for the 
latter, was avowed by his lordship on the death of 
the uncle, but it is sufficient for the purpose of this 
inquiry to state, that if any one could boast of 
having the entire confidence of Lord Chesterfield, it 
was Mr. S. Dayrolles. In the Memoirs of Lord 
Chesterfield, by Dr. Maty, it is recorded, that for 
some years before his lordship's decease, he had 
passed a very secluded life, seldom appearing in 
public, but that Mr. Dayrolles was his constant 
companion. 

And it is remarkable that the last person men- 
tioned by Lord Chesterfield a few moments before 
he expired, was his friend Dayrolles. So far, then, 
Mr. Dayrolles is traced as the companion of Lord 
Chesterfield during the time that the letters of 
Junius were in course of publication. It is not 
probable, therefore, that Lord Chesterfield could 
have concealed from Mr. Dayrolles, even if he had 
been inclined to do so, that he was writing the 
letters of Junius ; neither could his lordship, with- 



out some assistance, have carried on the corres- 
pondence with Woodfall. 

In page 59 of the Essay we have hinted that Mr. 
Dayrolles might have been Lord Chesterfield's 
amanuensis, but having seen the handwriting of Mr. 
Dayrolles, it does not seem possible that he could 
have disguised it into so beautiful a specimen of pen- 
manship as we find in many of the autographs of 
Junius. Besides, though Dayrolles' handwriting 
was not so well known as that of Lord Chesterfield, 
yet he had been too long, and too recently, employed 
at Court to run the risk of having his writing too 
commonly seen, however great the pains he might 
have taken to disguise it. But by engaging Mrs. 
Dayrolles to copy the letters, the danger was, in a 
great measure, removed; while Dayrolles himself 
had more leisure to obtain information for his friend 
for the carrying on of the correspondence in the 
Public Advertiser. Thus it appears that Lord Ches- 
terfield, although partially infirm, was not destitute 
of sufficient assistance for the completion of his 
labours. 

That Lord Chesterfield was capable of using his 
pen at the time the correspondence between Junius 
and Woodfall commenced, is satisfactorily proved 
by the fac simile of his Lordship's letter, dated 
July 7, 1767. Nor is there any evidence, except 
Lord Chesterfield's own letters, to shew that 
he was incapable of committing his thoughts to 
paper, even up to the time that Woodfall received 
the last private letter from Junius. 

As Mr. Dayrolles was the only man perhaps in 
whose hands Lord Chesterfield could trust his life 
and honour, so the wife was probably the only 
woman that Lord Chesterfield would have consented 
to receive assistance from in the hazardous under- 
taking in which he had involved himself. But 
Lord Chesterfield was too well acquainted with the 
dangers that attend the publication of anonymous 



libels not to appreciate the value of Mrs. Dayrolles' 
services, and with such an assistant, he felt himself 
comparatively safe, so long as she remained true to 
him, her husband, and herself. 

In examining the facsimile of Mrs. Dayrolles' 
letter, it will be necessary to bear in mind that it was 
written several years before the commencement of 
the private correspondence of Junius with Woodfall. 
Every one is aware of the changes which take place 
at different stages of life in the general appearance 
of handwriting. There are many who are not able 
to recognise, off-hand, their own autographs if 
written at distant intervals, but the distinctive 
marks are seldom obliterated in a hand that has 
any pretensions to originality. Thus, in Lord 
Chesterfield's Autograph Letters, his peculiarities are 
traceable through the several stages of his improve- 
ment in penmanship. 

In Mrs. Dayrolles' letter, the distinctive marks 
of Junius' s handwriting are strongly developed; 
and although there is more space between the 
words, and a greater freedom than is to be found 
in some of the autographs of Junius, yet her letter 
contains all the elements for forming itself by care 
and practice into the hand of the private letters to 
Woodfall. 

There are other causes also which would curb the 
flow of Mrs. Dayrolles' pen, and approximate her 
style of writing to the autographs of Junius. The 
handwriting of the private letters from Junius is 
evidently disguised, and in some instances so much 
so as to require considerable attention in order to 
discover the elements of the writer's usual auto- 
graph ? If it be admitted that Junius employed 
an amanuensis, the time required in copying would 
be longer than that occupied by Junius in compos- 
ing his familiar letters ; and in this case the amanu- 
ensis could scarcely avoid adopting in some degree 



the fashion of Junius's handwriting. This will ac- 
count for the neatness and precision of many of the 
autograph letters — more especially those whereon 
greater pains had been bestowed in transcribing, 
and these in many particulars resemble the hand- 
writing of Lord Chesterfield. 

The limited number of Mrs. Dayrolles' letters 
will not admit a minute comparison, but as far as 
single letters and words can be compared with the 
autograph of Junius, the resemblance is complete, 
and in many instances the identity of handwriting 
is very remarkable — such as in the formation of 
the letters a, s, p, w, &c, and in the words have, be, 
well, are, conspicuous, and many others pointed out 
in the table of comparisons. 

But the fac similes are before the reader, 
and as the autographs of Junius become familiar 
to him, he will find no difficulty in tracing 
the resemblance. In this pursuit the accuracy 
of the fac simile letters may be implicitly relied on, 
for when compared with the originals it is impossi- 
ble to discover the slightest deviation from the auto- 
graphs. For this perfection the writer of this Essay 
is indebted to a gentleman who did him the honour 
to recommend Mr. Frederick Netherclift, of King 
William- street, Strand — an artist whose skill in his 
profession is unrivalled. On this point the gentle- 
man spoke from experience, having had frequent 
occasion to employ Mr. Netherclift in taking fac 
similes which required the nicest tact to arrive at 
perfection, but in no instance whatever have his ex- 
pectations been disappointed. They have invariably 
proved to be (what such things very rarely are) in 
truth and indeed, fac similes of the copy set before 
the artist. 

The discovery of a handwriting worthy to be com- 
pared with the autographs of Junius has not been 
made without a laborious research, and some personal 
inconvenience. But it was necessary to satisfy the 



8 

public upon this point, that the prejudices of some 
and the bias of others should no longer stand in the 
way of a fair inquiry into the claims of so distin- 
guished a candidate as Lord Chesterfield. This 
task would, perhaps, have been unnecessary if the 
character of Lord Chesterfield, as a political writer, 
had been better known ; for the letters of Junius, 
when divested of their slander, will prove to be only 
a repetition of Lord Chesterfield's doctrines and 
opinions. It matters little who was the transcriber 
of the letters, (whether Philip Francis, or Mrs. 
Dayrolles) the mind of Chesterfield alone could 
have dictated them. This will be clearly shown 
when the chain of evidence is produced, which 
wanted this link only to fix the authorship for ever 
upon Lord Chesterfield. 

The writer takes this opportunity to acknowledge 
the great obligation he is under to Mr. H. D. Wood- 
fall, for the liberal and courteous manner in which 
he has, on several occasions, permitted him to have 
access to the Junius manuscripts, and more parti- 
cularly for the favour of being permitted to take fac 
similes of two of the most interesting of the auto- 
graph private letters of Junius. The first fac simile 
is remarkable as being the earliest private letter 
preserved by Mr. H. S. Woodfall, the other is the 
last letter which Junius wrote to his publisher. 
The address (copied from one of the letters) was 
published in Mr. WoodfalTs edition, and is here 
reprinted as a specimen of the bold and masterly 
style of writing which is to be found in many of the 
manuscripts of Junius. The literal and verbal com- 
parisons are taken in many instances from the 
several fac similes of Junius's autograph, given in 
Mr. WoodfalTs edition of 1812. 



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■AN ESSAY 

ON THE 

AUTHENTICITY OF THE FOUR 

LETTERS OF ATTICUS, 

INCLUDED IN WOODFALL'S EDITION 

OF 

JUNIUS. 



•' When once we shall have got hold of a right conjecture as to who was 
the writer, every date, fact, and incident in his life must offer itself in proof, 
and we shall have more than enough of these to settle the question beyon 
all cavil,"— Athenceum, No. 1194, p. 969. 



BY WILLIAM CRIMP, 

AUTHOR OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE, ETC. ETC. 



LONDON : 
HOPE & CO., 16, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 

1851. 



ADVEKTISEMENT. 



The Editor of the "Athenaeum," who professes to know so much about 
" Junius and his Works," has laughed to scorn the judgment of Dr. Good T 
for his selection of the miscellaneous letters of Junius. It will be found 
(with very few exceptions) that these letters contain sufficient "internal 
evidence " to justify the choice of the learned editor, and if Dr. Good had 
known or suspected that Lord Chesterfield was Junius, the bulk of the mis- 
cellaneous letters might have been greatly increased, for the pages of the 
Public Advertiser, as far back, probably, as the commencement of the reign 
of George III., contain "innumerable trifles," contributed by Lord Chester- 
field — many au thenticated by his initial C. These are easily recognisable 
from others under that signature, by their style and peculiar political bear- 
ing—the surest test of determining the authenticity of anonymous publica- 
tions. 

The genuine letters of Atticus ceased on the appearance of Junius. "When 
some other writer afterwards adopted that signature, it was publicly an- 
nounced by Woodfall, that the letters were not written by his own corres- 
pondent. 

The Athenaeum has " pronounced judgment " that, on the publication of 
the Stowe MSS. it will be found that Junius was " a middle-class man" 
and it is not improbable that an attempt may be again made to affiliate the 
letters on some junior clerk in a public office. But let the English nation 
look to it — Junius was the champion of the people— Avhatever gratitude they 
owe him should not be again diverted towards an unworthy object. The 
genuine letters contain abundant proofs that Chesterfield was the writer — 
whether a republication of these will meet with encouragement remains to 
be proved— but evidence is already before the public, and that derived almost 
from the miscellaneous letters, sufficient to convince any unprejudiced reader 
that Lord Chesterfield was the only person at that time capable of writing 
the letters of Junius. 



JUNIUS IN THE CHARACTER OF ATTICUS/ 

AN. ESSAY ON THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE FOUR LETTERS OF 
ATTICUS INCLUDED IN WOODFALL'S EDITION OF JUNIUS. 

If I were a party writer, the indiscretion of the ministerial advocates 
would give one as many advantages as even the icretched conduct of the 
ministry themselves. But I write for the public, and in that view hold 
myself far above a little triumph over men whose compositions are as 
weak as the cause they defend. — Atticus. 

When such wretched advocates and profligate panegyrists of corrup- 
tion, oppression, fraud, and all political immorality, direct their satire 
at one man, it is marking him out to the public as a person eminently 
distinguished by all the opposites of those vices. The execution of their 
design is as injudicious as the design itself. — Chesterfield, hi Vindication 
of Lord Lyttleton. 

The letters signed Atticus were written before Junius had ac- 
quired notoriety under his well-known signature. They preceded 
the death of Mr. Philip Stanhope only a few weeks, and may 
he regarded as the gathering of that storm which, after the 
death of Mr. Stanhope, burst upon the ministers with unmiti- 
gated fury. Indeed, one of these letters, dated 19th October, 
1768, is little more than a rough draft of the first celebrated 
letter of Junius, published on the 21st January, 1769. 

It is no valid argument against the authenticity of these let- 
ters, " That others are to be found under the same signature in 
the ' Public Advertiser ' both before and after those selected by 
Dr. Good." The question is, whether they bear the like " inter- 
nal evidence " which induced the editor to give the four which he 
selected a place among the miscellaneous writings of Junius. That 
he was right in doing so, will perhaps appeal' from the remarks 
and examples contained in this essay. 

" Disquisitions on the fluctuations of the funds, commerce, and 
/he decline of the empire" were favourite themes with Lord 
Chesterfield. Upon these subjects he could write with ease 
and fluency, for in active life they had often occupied his 
thoughts, and in his retirement frequently gave birth to gloomy 
apprehensions and melancholy forebodings. 

Nor are the letters of Atticus without their proportion of 
evidence to connect them with the writings of Junius. The like 
phrases, sentiments, and personal feelings, are observable through- 
out. The examples given will be sufficient to identify Atticus 



with both Junius and Lord Chesterfield, for almost every para- 
graph may be applied with strict propriety to either character. 

The frequent allusion to the funds, and u the practices in the 
alley," indicates that Junius was deeply interested in that kind 
of property. Though the assertion made by Atticus in the open- 
ing of his first letter, "that he had lately sold out," was pro- 
bably a fiction deemed necessary to the plan of his letter, and 
assumed for the purpose of introducing his opinions on trade, 
and the exhausted revenues of Great Britain, yet the writer 
might have felt some alarm, and contemplated landing himself 
from a troubled ocean of fear and anxiety. In similar language. 
Lord Chesterfield described his retirement from office in 1748, 
and "thanked God that he was safe and quiet on shore'" — no 
longer tossed on the troubled ocean of politics. 

The prevailing characteristic of these letters (indicative of 
the winter's temperament to despond) was pointed out by his 
contemporaries. In answer to this charge, Atticus vindicated 
himself in his second letter. " If a real misfortune were less- 
ened by concealment — if, by shutting our eyes to our weakness, 
we could give our enemies an opinion of our strength —none but a 
traitor would withdraw the veil which covered the nakedness of 
our country." And in his fourth letter he says : " In this and 
my former letters, I have presented to you, with plainness and 
sincerity, the melancholy condition to which we are reduced." 

In his first letter as Junius the same melancholy disposition 
is evinced, and elicited from Sir W. Draper observations similar 
to those which the letters of Atticus the year before had called 
forth. " This letter," says Sir W. Draper, " opens the deplorable 
situation of this country in a very affecting manner." 

This characteristic has also frequently been pointed out by com- 
mentators on the genuine letters of Junius. The editor of the 
new edition found some difficulty in reconciling a passage in 
the first letter with the character of Sir Philip Francis. 

" This deplorable scene," says Junius, " admits but of one 
addition, that we are governed by counsels from which a rea- 
sonable man can expect no remedy but poison, no relief but 
death." 

" At first reading," says Mr. Wade, in a note from Heron, 
" we might regard this and some other similar figures, as merely 
useless and extravagant. But more careful consideration will 
induce us to forego this opinion. It is the master art of these 
letters of Junius that they are addressed equally, on the one 
hand, to the taste, reason, and spirit of intrigue of the great, 
and on the other hand, to the prejudices, and fierce abusive 
spirit of the vulgar. For the sake of the latter, some slight 
occasional sacrifices were to be made bv taste. Of these, the 



present extravagant figure is one. It seems just a sally of 
genius and dignity of mind descending as far as it is possible 
for them to descend to the coarseness of vulgar abuse. Never 
was coarseness better reconciled with dignity than in these 
letters." 

Had Mr. Heron suspected Lord Chesterfield as the author of 
the letters of Junius, his difficulty would have been removed, for 
he might have traced in the writings of Lord Chesterfield this 
remarkable characteristic of Junius. 

Whenever Lord Chesterfield was dissatisfied with the measures 
of government he was accustomed to indulge in these gloomy and 
melancholy forebodings. This peculiar trait in the character of 
one who was celebrated for his lively parts and philosophical 
resignation, is noticed by his lordship's biographer (Works, vol. i. 
pp. 296, 340), and in his letters to Mr. Dayrolle he frequently 
betrayed this remarkable feature in his character. In 1756 he 
writes : — " These are not the gloomy apprehensions of a sick man; 
but real facts, obvious to whoever will see and reflect. One of the 
chief causes of this unfortunate situation is that we have now in 
truth no minister, but the administration is a mere republic, and 
carried on by the Cabinet Council, the individuals of which think 
only how to get the better of each other. Let us then turn our 
eyes as much as we can from this melancholy prospect, which neither 
of us can mend, and think of something else." — (Works, vol. ii. p. 
189.) And a few days after he wrote, " We are no longer a nation. 
I never saw so dreadful a prospect." 

" I am not surprised," says Atticus, " that the generality of men 
should endeavour to shut their eyes to this melancholy prospect. Yet 
I am filled with grief and indignation when I behold a wise and 
gallant people lost in a stupidity which does not feel because it 
will not look forward. The voice of one man will hardly be heard 
when the voice of truth and reason is neglected, but as far as mine 
extends, the authors of our ruin shall be marked out to the public. 
I will not tamely submit to be sacrificed, nor shall this country 
perish without a warning." — (Vol. iii. p. 176.) 

" If there be yet a spark of virtue left among us, this great 
nation shall not be sacrificed to the fluctuating interests and way- 
ward passions of a minister, nor even to the caprices of a monarch. 
If there be no virtue left, it is no matter who are ministers, nor 
how soon they accomplish our destruction." — (Vol. iii. p. 189.) 

These passages indicate that Atticus was preparing to come 
before the public in a more prominent character, and that the 
crisis of his indignation against the Duke of Grafton was fast 
approaching. Philip Stanhope was dying when the letters of 
Atticus were published, and expired on the 16th November, 
1768. 



/ But the letters of Attieus are not only remarkable for their 
despondency, they also betray the querulous tone of old age. 
The Duke of Grafton, who was then in his thirty-fourth year (and 
five years the senior of Sir P. Francis), is described as a mere 
boy — and he and his associates in the ministry are thus graphically 
delineated. 

_ " Yet these are the times, sir, when every ignorant boy thinks 
himself fit to be a minister. Instead of attending to objects of 
national importance, our worthy governors are contented to divide 
their time between private pleasures and ministerial intrigues. 
Their activity is just equal to the prosecution of a prisoner in 
the King's Bench, or to the honourable struggle of providing for 
their dependants. If there be a good man in the King's service, 
they dismiss him of course, and when bad news arrives, instead 
of uniting to consider of a remedy, their time is spent in ac- 
cusing and reviling one another. " Thus the debate concludes 
with some half misbegotten measure, which is left to execute itself* 
Away they go. One retires to a country-house — another is 
engaged at a horse-race — a third has an appointment witli a pros- 
titute — and as to their country, they leave her, like a cast uif 
mistress, to perish under the diseases they have given her." 

Throughout these disputed. letters we find the same Contempt 
betrayed in reference to the age and inexperience of the Duke of 
Grafton, which Junius afterwards so frequently noticed when 
taunting the King in the choice of so young a minister. In the 
first letter we have seen that Attieus described the fiery duke as 
an an ignorant boy, in his third letter his grace is not only a young 
man, but a young ma>t without solidity or judgment, and he extenuates 
the amusements of this young man and will not call them criminal, 
if his grace will only dignify his vices by a due observance of 
decorum. And in his fourth letter he says, " In vain may we look 
for the temper and firmness of a great minister ; — we shall find 
nothing but the passion or weakness of a boy — the enervated lan- 
guor of a consumption, or the false strength of a delirium.'' 

There are but few moralists who would venture to inculcate the 
doctrine, that vice may be dignified by the observance of a proper 
regard for decorum. Yet this extraordinary license against the 
acknowledged precepts of morality is contained both in the writ- 
ings of Junius and of Lord Chesterfield. A few instances will 
suffice to convince the reader that the same mind gave utterance 
to the sentiments expressed in the following parallels : — 

* The expression, an Act of Parliament executing itself, i3 traceable 
to Lord Chesterfield. In his lordship's memorable speech on the Gin Act, 
1743, he said in defence of the existing law, that " its only defect was that 
it would not execute itself." 



Junius. 
His private- hi story would but 
little deserve our attention, if 
he had not voluntarily bi ought 
it into public notice. I will 
not call the amusements * of a 
young man criminal, though I 
think they become his age bet- 
ter than his station. There is a 
period at which the most unruly 
passions are gratified or ex- 
hausted, and which leaves the 
mind clear and undisturbed. 
His Grace's gallantry would be 
offended if we were to suppose 
him within many years of being 
thus qualified for public affairs. 
As for the rest, making every 
allowance for the frailty of hu- 
man nature, I can make none 
for a continued breach of public 
decorum. — Atticus. 



Chesterfield. 
Do not think that I mean to 
snarl at pleasure like a stoic, or 
to preach against it like a par- 
son. No, 1 mean to point it out, 
and recommend it to you like 
an epicurean. A sprightly de- 
bauche, now and then, is very 
well, but the dull, sedate, and 
continued guzzling of claret is 
very unbecoming to a young 
fellow. 



If vice itself could be excu- 
sed, there is yet a certain dis- 
play of it, a certain outrage to 



Should you be unfortunate 
enough to have vices, you may, 
to a certain degree, even dig- 



* Junius, a short time before, had told the public what were the 
amusements of the Duke of Grafton — horse-racing — the hazard table, 
and exhibiting the lovely Thais at the Opera House. These, it appears, 
were not criminal in the eyes of Junius, unless accompanied by a breach 
of public decorum. 

Although Lord Chesterfield, by his essay on "Decorum" introduced 
the Latin form of this word into general use, it cannot be said to have 
been naturalised until the publication of Junius' s letters in 1772; that 
writer missed no opportunity of employing it in its English form, by 
emitting the distinction oi' italics. Even within a year or two before 
Junius had captivated the literary world by his style, we find Lord 
Chesterfield still endeavouring to accomplish his purpose. In a letter 
to his God-son, in 1765-6, he writes, "Discretion will teach you to 
have a particular attention to your moeurs, which we have no one word 
in our language to express exactly — morals are too much, manners too 
little — decency comes the nearest to it, though rather short of it. ' 
Cicero's word, decorum, is properly the thing, and I see no reason why 
that expressive word should not be adopted and naturalised in our 
language. I have never scrupled using it in that sense." — Letters, Vol. 
ii. p. 422. 



decency, and violation of public 
decorum, which, for the benefit 
of society, should never be for- 
given. 



nify them by a strict observance 
of decorum. — Advice to his God- 



So far, we see the character of Atticus strictly agreeing with 
that of Lord Chesterfield under similar circumstances. But the 
proofs do not rest here. The parallel sentiments are so exact, 
that scarcely two minds would have accidentally illustrated their 
opinions in the following remarkable manner : — 



Atticus. 
The policy of concealment is 
no better than the wisdom of a 
prodigal, who wastes his estate 
without reflection, and has not 
courage to examine his accounts. 

I presume he was then learn- 
ing his trade, for he soon setup 
for himself. 

To vulgar minds it may ap- 
pear unattainable, because vul- 
gar minds make no distinction 
between the highly difficult and 
the impossible. 

The greatness of a kingdom 
cannot long be stationary. That 
of Great Britain, carried in it- 
self, an interior principle of 
weakness and decay. While 
the war continued, our superi- 
ority at sea gave us an exclusive 
commerce with the richest quar- 
ters of the world, and supplied 
us with wealth to support such 
efforts as no nation ever made 
before. But when the conclu- 
sion of peace had restored our 
rivals to the enjoyment of their 
former trade, the very efforts 
which had maintained the war, 
rendered it impossible for us to 
meet those rivals upon equal 
terms, &c. — Atticus. 



Chesterfield. 
The man who by long negli • 
gence, owes a great deal, de- 
spairs of ever being able to pay, 
and, therefore, never looks into 
his accounts. 

Your apprenticeship is near 
out, and you are soon to set up 
for yourself. 

Sense must distinguish be- 
tween what is impossible and 
what is only difficult, and spirit 
and perseverance will get the 
better of the latter. 

If the balance of trade be 
against you, that is, if you buy 
more than you sell, you must 
necessarily make up that differ- 
ence in money and your bul- 
lion, or your coin, which are, 
in effect, the same thing, must 
and will be exported, in spite of 
all laws. But if you sell more 
than you buy, then foreigners 
must do the same by you, and 
make up their deficiency in 
bullion or coin. Gold and sil- 
ver are but merchandise as well 
as cloth or linen, and that na- 
tion that buys the least and 
sells the most, must always 
have the most money. — Axioms 
in Trade. 



9 



The following verbal peculiarities, occurring in the letters of 
Atticus (identifying that writer as the author of the letters of 
Junius), may be compared with the diction of Lord Chesterfield : — 



Junius as Atticus. 
But it was in the colonies 
where our best and surest hopes 
were founded. Their exclusive 
commerce would have sup- 
ported our home-manufactures 
when other markets failed, and 
rewarded us, in some measure, 
for that security and extent of 
dominion which the Mood and 
treasure of this country had 
purchased for them. 



In my last letter, I foretold 
the great fall of the stocks, 
which has since happened, and 
I do not scruple to foretell that 
they must and will fall much 
lower. 

But I see the spirit which 
has gone abroad through the 
colonies, and I know what con- 
sequences that spirit must and 
will produce. 



The colonies were dutiful 
children and Great Britain a 
severe step-mother. 



In the first place, I consider 
this country as in a situation 
the like of which it never ex- 
perienced before, but which the 
greatest empires have experi- 
enced in their turns. 



Chesterfield. 
The people of England could 
not be induced to submit to new 
taxes and impositions, in order 
to destroy that balance of power 
which, at such an incredible 
expense of blood and treasure, 
they had endeavoured to render 
immoveable, nor the House of 
Austria to be undone, that the 
petty princes of Germany might 
aggrandise themselves out of 
spoil. — Case of the Hanover 
troops. 

And your bullion or your 
coin, which are, in effect, the 
same thing, must and willhe ex- 
ported in spite of all law.- -Ax- 
ioms in T?'ade. 



Rejoice, therefore, that there 
is one person in the world, who 
can and icill tell you what will 
be very useful to you to know, 
and yet, what no other man 
living could or would tell you. — 
Letters. 

For my part, I never saw a 
froward child mended by whip- 
ping, and I would not have the 
mother-country become a step- 
mother. — Letters. 

What conclusions you will 
draw from these premises, I do 
not know, I protest I draw 
none ; but only stare at the 
present undecipherable state 
of affairs, which, in fifty years' 
experience, I have never seen 
anything like it. 



- 



10 



As for the rest, making every 
allowance for the frailty of hu- 
man nature, I can make none 
for a continued breach of deco- 
rum, nor can I believe that man 
very zealous for the interest of 
his country, who sets her opi- 
nions at defiance. 



In this single sentence ot 
Atticus, we find three expres- 
sions indicative of the author. 
The frailty of human nature was 
Lord Chesterfield's excuse for 
his vices. His rigid observance 
of decorum dignified those vices, 
and the phrase, to set at defiance 
was one of the common phrases 
of Junius, and may be found in 
the writings of Lord Chester- 
field. 



Junius as Atticus. 
This treatment of the colo- 
nies, added to his refusal to 
present a petition from one of 
them to the King (a direct 
breach of the Declaration of 
Rights), will naturally throw 
them all into aflame. 



Yet the first act of his admi- 
nistration, was to impose a tax 
upon America, which has since 
thrown the whole Continent into a 
flame. 

In the last instance of his 
Grace's judgment and consist- 
ency, we see him, after trying 
and deserting every party, 
throw himself into the arms of a 
set of men whose political prin- 
ciples he had always pretended 
to abhor. 



If I were a party writer, the 
indiscretion of the ministerial 
advocates would give me as 
many advantages as even the 
icretched conduct of the minis- 
try themselves. 



Chesterfield. 
Should the noble lord's mo- 
tion be agreed to, my lords, and 
the news of it sent * over to 
France, as it certainly would, 
the very next dispatch would 
tell them that the nation were 
in a flame, and the Government 
would not be supported by the 
people. — Debate on the Trea- 
ties, 1757. 



Did we not oblige Spain to 
throw herself entirely into the 
arms of France, by which we 
again united the two great 
branches of the house of Bour- 
bon ? — Debate. 1734. See, also, 
the same expression used in 
this debate, and in " Common 
Sense," No. 103. 

The character of the Duke of 
Argyle, nay, even the wretched 
President, will all pretend to 
have something to say.— Let. 
to Lord Lyttleton. 



11 

You see in the public papers, 
That wretched creature, Lord the wretched situation of our 



Townsend. 



Marchmont. 



Your wretched friend, that 
miserable sergeant. 

It has been pointed out as a singularity, that Junius uses " of 
his side," instead of " on his side," &c, but the peculiarity is, 
that Junius uses both forms of expression, and in this particular 
also agrees with Lord Chesterfield. 

Junius as Atticus. Chesterfield. 

Here, my Lord, you have for- You had not the necessary 

tune of your side. — Vol. ii. arms for victory, for you had 

p. 169. only justice of your side, which 

in Scotland as well as here, is 

I am persuaded he would not alone sufficient. — Vol. iii. 

have the reasonable part of the p. 94. 
Americans of his side. 

We will close these extracts with an example of a peculiarity in 
diction of apparently trivial import, but rendered remarkable by 
its having been observed by Atticus in his letters, and, so far, 
keeps up the connexion between that writer and Junius. 

Antipathies to things are familiar in the experience of every one, 
but it has not perhaps been generally observed that sensitive 
minds have often antipathies to words, not because the words are 
in themselves vulgar or improper, but from some association of 
ideas that renders their use disagreeable to the individual. This 
prejudice has occasioned some grammarians to decry certain 
words which to their own ears alone were objectionable. The 
word dint has long been repudiated as vulgar, though no term 
has been substituted to express the exact meaning which that 
word implies. Under the impression of this kind of antipathy 
Lord Chesterfield struck the word namely from the vocabulary 
of Philip Stanhope, and desired him to use the phrase " which 
is, 11 or " that is," as a substitute. In his own works the word 
namely never cccurs, though he did not scruple occasionally to 
adopt the more objectionable abbreviation viz. in its stead. 

The same avoidance of the use of the word namely is rigidly 
adhered to by Junius in his Letters. During the five years that 
lie wrote for the "Public Advertiser" it is in no instance introduced. 
He invariably prefers " that is " or " viz.," where other good 
writers would not have scrupled to use namely, and perhaps in 









12 

preference to the more formal " that is," recommended by Lord 
Chesterfield. In some instances, indeed, Junius does not seem 
to have added much grace to the flow of his periods by his 
strict adherence to the then unpublished instructions of Lord 
Chesterfield. 

" Yet, even if that -were determined, another question remains 
full of difficulty and danger ; — that is, in what manner the public 
will avail themselves of this great right, decided by nothing but 
a vote in Parliament." — Atticus. 

In this example it will be seen that the printer, in order to 
comply with the writer's prejudice, was compelled to cobble the 
sentence, by inserting both a semicolon and a dash where a 
comma would have been sufficient if the word namely had been 
employed. 

It may be further observed, that it is the awkward use of the 
word namely that makes it objectionable, and this probably first 
gave Lord Chesterfield a dislike to it ; but the sentence in Mr. 
Stanhope's letter is very little improved by the alteration. 

" You inform me of a very agreeable piece of news, namely, that my 
election is secured.'''' Instead of namfly " writes Lord Chesterfield," 
I would always use " which is" or " that is." 

To a philologist this peculiarity will have some weight, and 
on that account deserves to be recorded among the facts in this 
inquiry. 

Any one who has attentively read Lord Chesterfield's speeches 
and writings (more particularly those of the period of the great 
Walpolean Battles), will find that the doctrines and opinions of 
Junius are merely a repetition of the maxims and sentiments of 
Lord Chesterfield. On every great constitutional question they 
are the same ; nor does the language of Junius differ from the 
well-known ironical style of Chesterfield, except in the bitterness 
of its sarcasm, and in those peculiarities which are always ob- 
servable in laboured compositions. Junius was conscious of this, 
and withheld his popular signature from those letters that were 
not written in the style of Junius. The miscellaneous letters, 
therefore, approach more nearly to Lord Chesterfield's manner of 
writing, with the exception of that want of freedom which the 
fear of detection will always produce in an anonymous libeller. 

It would be useless to extend these proofs, for every sentence 
in the four letters of Atticus breathes the spirit of Lord Ches- 
terfield. They may be said to contain an epitome of his lord- 
ship's opinions on the policy of government and the financial 
resources of Great Britain. 






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